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Show 4 : i:; Legation ml lm LlFB IN CHINA. SI ( otlV The succession to the dragon throne of China is hereditary, but it does not, however, descend to any particular son of the reigning emperor. The choice usually falls on the oldest son, but the emperor is supposed to carefully watch and judge the abilities of his different s..ns and choose for the succession that one which would make the best em ,,ernr and give his people the wisest v and most peaceful rule. Should the ..mppror. however, die without making any selection, the princes of the fam-i fam-i !-. being- the brothers or uncles of the emperor just deceased meet to gethor and. from the generation suc- v-lmg that of the late emperor select I someone of the family to oceuov the limine. For those members "of the fiimily who are not so fortunate as to '' selected for the sure, ssion great dura! palaces are selected and asfimed thr-m for royal residences. The '"for- , hidden city in the heart of the citv of I Jv-Kin is. of course, the residence of i the emperor himself, and to this city' is brought the member of the family ! who is selected as the heir anparent I Jim oiuside of the forbidden citv Pekiri is d.-tted with the great park or com- ' pound that surrounds these royal dii- I ;i! palaces. The grounds usually t ra ntre from two to five acres in area ! -.-.nd are surrounded by high brick walls ! of great strength, cutting- them off completely from the sound and smells of the city outside. ITo Hereditaiy Nobility. j The Chiuese have always been op- I posed to any hereditary nobilitv, and while these ducal palaces are assigned as imperial residences to sons of the ' reigning monarch, it is always -with j the provision that when the family of j the occupant has. by the operaton of! Chinese law (which provides that imperial im-perial descendants lose one degree in rank with each generation until the third, when they have been reduced to the level of the common people, the palaces then revert to the crown for reassienment to sons of the then reigning reign-ing monarch. It is on account of this peculiar law that the palaces of Pekin Rre occupied by an ever changing population, pop-ulation, first princes of the blood, then their children and grandchildren in Kuceession after them, then the vacation vaca-tion of the palace and its reassignment .gain to princes of the reigning fam- ily. The fourth generation from the royal family have no official title or rank, ptill all persons of royal descent, to the remotest generation, are allowed to wear the yellow girdle indicative of r their royal descent. These yellow gir dle men. or Huang Daizas, are one of Ihe features of Pekin. Many of them have inherited wealth from their royal ancestors and are prominent in their community, but others have fared differently dif-ferently with fortune. Some hang around the imperial offices seeklnr the humblest employment; others are' the Kcribes and teachers, and even domestic domes-tic servants may be found wearing the yellow girdle. Ducal Palaces For Our Envoys. The treaty which closed the French I and English war in I860 first granted to the powers the right to maintain their embassies in the Chinese capitol, In the early days, before the building of the railroad from Tien Tsin to Pekin. Pe-kin. the line of travel was up the river to Tungvhow and thence into the cap ital through the east one of the southern south-ern gates of the city. Entering Pekin through this gate the forbidden city, -with its imperial palaces, lay to the west, and it was but natural that the first envoys should turn up the first street leading towards the palaces. It so happened that this street had been for centuries the quarter in' which lodged the envoys from the tribute- j paying neighbors of the Chinese em- pire Coreans. Mongols. Tibetans and I Indo-Chinese and the street, which is j known among the foreigners as lga- j tion street, is called by the Chinese the street of tribute nations. The fact j that the foreigners established themselves them-selves in this quarter has in a large measure influenced the Chinese in their treatment of them, and while a mis-lake mis-lake was made in this respect, still the early embassadors chose wisely in I selecting for their residences the hand- Fomest of the then unoccupied palaces j belonging to the crown. JTfce Fine English Legation. j The English selected a large palace T.-hich lay along the west side of a cvinal that drains the lakes within the f rbidden city and lies just north of Legation street. The quaintness and oriental magnificence of these ducal palaces -has been largely preserved by! the. legations that have occupied them. I The massive entrances stand un- ; cnancred: the open pavilions with their j lacquered pillars and rich carvings are used as ball rooms. The courts j end arbors and walks, with their rook- ! eries and terraces, still stand: but the j details of the dwelling houses have been changed to suit the requirements of modern comfort, and there is little comparison between the severely sim- p!e furnishings of the former Chinese occupants and the luxuriously fur- rushed salons of the modern embassadors. embas-sadors. Glass windows and tight doors if work alaced the old inese fret co neJ Th enbuilt in every available arM ? e vlnlers in Pekin are cold, n 1 .enre lh Chinese find comfort the w ng actional suits of clothes. Lee,, ,v man lnsists on h's Ares to bun in Y an the many chimneys furheo MheSe - d Pa!aces have s disturbed dis-turbed the spirits of their former occupants oc-cupants that they have caused moe discussion than affairs of state. How the Legations "Were Defended. thlL iheay WalIs -which surround ,e&fat!ons navp Proved effective ?i nV,f rdefpnse, while the Chinese method oi building houses up against each other and their numerous alleys and courts and narrow passages, and their many back gates offer such facilities fa-cilities for "underground" communications communica-tions as can be found in no other citv I !" wo:Id. The Kritlsh legation, in which suen a small band of marines has been able to defy Chinese, hordes numbering tens of thousands, is ad- Joined on both the north and south by the compounds of friendlv Chinese At the northwest corner were the imperial im-perial carriage yards: on the west were still other enclosures of friendly t hinese. while the stable gates at the southwest corner of the legation opened into a large Chinese market. The walls around the legation, almost three feet thick, have been cut and fi-om the Chinese market it was an easy matter to smuggle supplies and provisions, and also to spv on the besieging mobs around them. These egations are in raci iittie cities within themselves. The English legation has m i? Pmises no les-s than eight or ten different wells, and covers an area of about six acres. There are separate establishments for the minister and for the .irst and second secretaries of legation, le-gation, extensive quarters and barracks bar-racks for consular students and military mil-itary escorts, private stables for the minister and general stables for others of the legation, a doctor's house and a hospital, a parsonage and a chapel, a. school and homes for teachers, beside be-side extensive quarters for servants. The other legations, except the American, are maintained on the same-general same-general plan, though none of them on so elaborate a scale as that maintained by the English The American Legation. The American legation occupies the most humble quarters of any foreign embassy. On the south side of Legation Lega-tion street, just beyond an old marble bridge that crosses the canal, it lies in the shadow of the great wall of the Tartar city. The Chinese cannot understand un-derstand and have never ceased to wonder and speculate on how one who lives so simply as the American minister min-ister can exact such consideration and respect from the ambassadors of the other powers, w ho maintain court with Oriental splendor in the magnificent old palaces of the Manchu prices. Some have complained that life in Pekin was almost exile. For many years it was comparatively quiet. The ministers had littie to do looking after the interests of their governments and there were few complaints from their citizens engaged in trade throughout the empire. The delightful summers were spent in the old temples on the famous western hills overlooking the plain surrounding Pekin. Excursions and side trips to the great wall, the Ming tombs, the summer' palace, the beautiful deer park or to the royal potteries, where the beautiful yellow, j green and blue porcelain which adorn j the imperial palaces are made under ! the direction of a descendant of the ; original inventor, furnished about all the excitement that was to be found. In the winter time the succession of state dinners and legation balls were varied with ice carnivals held in the skating rinks, which were made by flooding the tennis courts in the legation lega-tion grounds and housing them over with sheds of bamboo matting. Ever since the outbreak of the Japanese Jap-anese war. when the moving armies of Chinese soldiers from provinces where . foreigners were unknown began to make it dangerous to wander about the city as the legation people had formerly former-ly done, there have been secret treaties, trea-ties, waves of reform and great reactions, re-actions, riots, beheadings. hurried flights, rumors of uprising, abdications, abdica-tions, the coming and going of legation guards, and now at last the deluge. GUY MORRISON WALKER. |