Page:China Under the Empress Dowager - ed. Backhouse and Bland - 1914.pdf/284

 all his tastes are vicious, and his manners rude and overbearing. To give you an instance of his doings: on the 18th of the 10th Moon, accompanied by his brother and by his uncle, the Boxer Duke Lan, and followed by a crowd of eunuchs, he got mixed up in a fight with some Kansu braves at a theatre in the Temple of the City God. The eunuchs got the worst of it, and some minor officials who were in the audience were mauled by the crowd. The trouble arose, in the first instance, because of the eunuchs attempting to claim the best seats in the house, and the sequel shows to what lengths of villainy these fellows will descend, and how great is their influence with the highest officials. The eunuchs were afraid to seek revenge on the Kansu troops direct, but they attained their end by denouncing the manager of the theatre to Governor Ts'en, and by inducing him to close every theatre in Hsi-an. Besides which, the theatre manager was put in a wooden collar, and thus ignominiously paraded through the streets of the city. The Governor was induced to take this action on the ground that Her Majesty, sore distressed at the famine in Shansi and the calamities which have overtaken China, was offended at these exhibitions of unseemly gaiety; and the proclamation which closed the playhouses, ordered also that restaurants and other places of public entertainment should suspend business. Everybody in the city knew that this was the work of the eunuchs. Eventually Chi Lu, Chamberlain of the Household, was able to induce the chief eunuch to ask the Old Buddha to give orders that the theatres be reopened. This was accordingly done, but of course the real reason was not given, and the Proclamation stated that, since the recent fall of snow justified hopes of a prosperous year and good harvests, as a mark of the people's gratitude to Providence, the theatres would be reopened as usual, 'but no More disturbances must occur.'

"It would seem that the Old Buddha still cherishes hopes of defeating the foreigners, for she is particularly delighted by a Memorial which has been sent in lately by Hsia Chen-wu, in which he recommends a certain aboriginal tribesman ('Man-tzu') as a man of remarkable strategic ability. He offers to lose his own head and those of all his family, should this Heaven-sent warrior fail to defeat all the troops of the Allies in one final engagement, and he begs that the Emperor may permit this man to display his powers and thus save the Empire."