of events to which any solution by theories of coincidence
is evidently difficult. Most of the following account of Her
Majesty's last days is derived from the statements of two
high officials, one Manchu and the other Chinese, who
were at that time on duty with the Court. Their testimony
and their conclusions coincide, on the whole, with those of
the best-informed and most reliable Chinese newspapers,
whose news from the capital is also generally from official
sources. We accept them, naturally, with all reserve, yet
with an inclination to give the Empress Dowager, on this
occasion, the benefit of their good opinions and our own
doubts. The simultaneous deaths may possibly have been
due to natural causes, but it is to be observed by the most
sympathetic critic, that the account given by Her Majesty's
loyal servants of her behaviour immediately after the
Emperor's death, is by no means suggestive of sorrow, but
rather of relief.

It was in the previous autumn that the Emperor became
very ill, so much so that he was gradually compelled during
the last year of his life to desist from performance of the
usual sacrifices, which entail no small expenditure of physical
energy through their genuflections and continual prostrations.
The impression gradually gained ground that His Majesty
was not likely to live much longer, and it was remarked, and
remembered as a significant fact, that the Old Buddha had
some time before given orders for the engagement of special
wet-nurses for the infant son of Prince Ch'un, born in
February, 1906. It was understood that these orders
implied the selection of this infant Prince to succeed Kuang-
Hsü, but although many attempts were made to induce her
to declare herself on this subject, she declined to do so
on the ground that her previous experience had been unlucky,
that her selections had been the cause of much misunder-
standing, and that, moreover, it was a house-law of the
Dynasty that the heir to the throne could only be lawfully
selected when the sovereign was in extremis a rule which

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