Show BURIAL OF ROYALTY K IS 8 A MOST EXPENSIVE UNDER TAKING IN CHINA more than will be expended e d in rites over late emperor obsequies of empress dowager just as costly akin the chines empire will expend moret more than haa in the burial rites of the late emperor and dowager empress of the celestial kingdom be lore fore the confucian Contu clan law and the ancient precedents governing the the burl burial of chinese royalty are arc complied compiled with the religion and all chinese usage la in founded on respect tor for the dead and to the western observer yer the lavish expenditure of money attendant on the taking of 0 the body of emperor kwang lewang hau from the ahe Forbid forbidden deit city to the coal hill mortuary with all its pomp and splendor was nothing short of the grotesque A for a week the body of the dead emperor rested in state in the room in the palace reserved especially for that purpose by the chinese court be fore his remains could be removed the i law demanded that every piece of his personal property must be destroyed priceless silks furs gems art works of which the emperor was intensely fond during his life were assigned to the flames this was done at the cost 0 a fortune while the destruction of the vast personal effects odthe of the dow ager empress will entail an expend it ure of doubly as much BrIlli brilliant int barbaric and weird was the progress aa of the cortege through the streets of pekin the other day 1 l the procession nias was led by prince chun the regent while th the a baby cm am geror had a prominent position in the tha line thousands of soldiers ministers of state priests priest sand and prominent civilians marched to the coal hill while my reads of mourners bowed their heads in the dust as the body was borne by S at mortuary hill the remains will lie i in state until the imperial sepulcher blier li ls Is prepared pre the dowager empress will be burled in the spring when lier her mausoleum j shall have been completed her ob Se will cost as much as those of the emperor A vast collection ot of priceless fursland furs fur sand and other personal prop prod erty arty belonging to iier her was incinerated f I 1 in n her palace two days ago the funeral observances were no table for a strange admix admixture lure of an all dent clent chinese custom with western forms form sand and practices a fact that shows v tze progress made iu in recent years ot of T modernizing the system of procedure tor for imperial interments Inter ments handed down from bygone generations the fact that many of the old gro tesque funeral forms that have been observed for centuries were today to day I 1 ig L nored as utterly unsuited to modern conditions has baa brought out much local criticism of the government but in spite of this the tha throne has ordered the tha grand council to consider another memorial looking to the alteration 0 of existing funeral observances to conform to modern methods |