he sons of emperors usually receive
patents of the first or second order on their reaching manhood, and on
their sons is bestowed the title of _Beileh_. A _Beileh's_ sons become
_Beitsze_; a Beitsze's sons become _Kung_, and so on. (R. K. D.; X.)

(D)--_From 1875 to 1901._

The two dowager-empresses.

The accession to the throne of Kwang-su in January 1875 attracted little
notice outside China, as the supreme power continued to be vested in the
two dowager-empresses--the empress Tsz'e An, principal wife of the
emperor Hien-feng, and the empress Tsz'e Hsi, secondary wife of the same
emperor, and mother of the emperor T'ung-chi. Yet there were
circumstances connected with the emperor Kwang-su's accession which
might well have arrested attention. The emperor T'ung-chi, who had
himself succumbed to an ominously brief and mysterious illness, left a
young widow in an advanced state of pregnancy, and had she given birth
to a male child her son would have been the rightful heir to the throne.
But even before she sickened and died--of grief, it was officially
stated, at the loss of her imperial spouse--the dowager-empresses had
solved the question of the succession by placing Kwang-su on the throne,
a measure which was not only in itself arbitrary, but also in direct
conflict with one of the most sacred of Chinese traditions. The solemn
rites of ancestor-worship, incumbent on every Chinaman, and, above all,
upon the emperor, can only be properly performed by a member of a
younger generation than those whom it is his duty to honour. The emperor
Kwang-su, being a first cousin to the emperor T'ung-chi, was not
therefore qualified to offer up the customary sacrifices before the
ancestral tablets of his predecessor. The accession of an infant in the
place of T'ung-Tchi achieved, however, for the time being what was
doubtless the paramount object of the policy of the two empresses,
namely, their undisturbed tenure of the regency, in which the junior
empress Tsz'e Hsi, a woman of unquestionable ability and boundless
ambition, had gradually become the predominant partner.

Murder of Mr Margary.

The first question that occupied the attention of the government under
the new reign was one of the gravest importance, and nearly led to a war
with Great Britain. The Indian government was desirous of seeing the old
trade relations between Burma and the south-west provinces, which had
been interrupted by the Yun-nan rebell