ry Court, which Yuan Shih-kai had
turned into an engine of judicial assassination, and within whose gloomy
precincts many thousands of unfortunate men had perished practically
untried in the period 1911-1916.

Meanwhile the general situation throughout the country only slowly
ameliorated. The Northern Military party, determined to prevent
political power from passing solely into the hands of the Southern
Radicals, bitterly opposed the revival of the Nanking Provisional
Constitution, and denounced the re-convocation of the old Parliament of
1913, which had already assembled in Shanghai, preparatory to coming up
to the capital. It needed a sharp manoeuvre to bring them to their
senses. The Chinese Navy, assembled in the waters near Shanghai, took
action; and in an ultimatum communicated to Peking by their Admiral,
declared that so long as the government in the hands of General Tuan
Chi-jui refused to conform to popular wishes by reviving the Nanking
Provisional Constitution and resummoning the old Parliament, so long
would the Navy refuse to recognize the authority of the Central
Government. With the fleet in the hands of the Southern Confederacy,
which had not yet been formally dissolved, the Peking Government was
powerless in the whole region of the Yangtsze; consequently, after many
vain manoeuvres to avoid this reasonable and proper solution, it was at
last agreed that things should be brought back precisely where they had
been before the _coup d'etat_ of the 4th November, 1913--the Peking
Government being reconstituted by means of a coalition cabinet in which
there would be both nominees of the North and South--the premiership
remaining in the hands of General Tuan Chi-jui.

On the 28th June a long funeral procession wended its way from the
Presidential Palace to the railway Station; it was the remains of the
great dictator being taken to their last resting-place in Honan.
Conspicuous in this cortege was the magnificent stage-coach which had
been designed to bear the founder of the new dynasty to his throne but
which only accompanied him to his grave. The detached attitude of the
crowds and the studied simplicity of the procession, which was designed
to be republican, proved more clearly than reams of arguments that
China--despite herself perhaps--had become somewhat modernized, the
oldest country in the world being now the youngest republic and timidly
trying to learn the lessons of youth.

Once Yuan Shih-kai had