EMPRESS DOWAGER OF CHINA

Evening Post, Volume LXVII, Issue 148, 23 June 1904, Page 5

EMPRESS DOWAGER OF CHINA

HER SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY. REFORM LEADERS PARDONED. fI'BESS AS.SOCrATION.I (Received Juno 23, 8 35 a.m.) TEKIN, 22nd June. In celebration of her seventieth birthday, the liinpicss Dowager of Chinu pardoned all those connected with the 18% reform movement, with tho exception of the loaders, Kungyuivev und Uiiiigchechau. On tho occasion ot the return of tho Chinese Court to Pckin, Mr. Archibald Little recently contributed to the Cornhill Magazine an interesting word sketch of the Empress Dowager. She certainly looked her ago, ho wrote, with her broad faco nnd many double chins. Her oyes, the longest probably ever seen, remained cast down, uud though there was a great appearance of graeiuusuess, tho smilo, whoso coldness even chills foreign Ministcis, wus pivsoul. Yet, oven iw she stood still and silent with her eyes cast down, one felt the magnetic power of the j woman. There was no appearance of j powder or pit hit about her, no indication of either eyes or eyebrows being artificially lengthened. If done at nil, it j must have been well done. But the thing that waa most striking about her j wjis her stillness. JuSt as tho Empress regnant, but not ruling, appeared at tho carriage door the train began to back away, and I saw nothing but her oyes and brow, above which tho locks were wide dispersed. So far it seemed a good face. But it was impossible to discern whether the will power was there, bo visible in the Empress-Dowa-ger's pleasantly-flattering face, with falsity written large over every lino of the apparently good humoured surface. The Dowager is of the type so well known in every land where society exists, Wore «ho an English mother she would, one feels at once, marry all her daughters to eldest sons ii respective, of whether they were lunatics or confirmed dipsomaniacs. She wonld smilo and say pleasant things, as she pressed forward over her enemy's dead body without even a thrill of pleasure in the doing so ; it would 1m so absolutely indifferent to her how she got there provided she got to tho, front. People who have seen her eyes raised talk of their marvellous quickness ; people who hnvo seen her smito tulk of tho smile's coldness ; ladies who have conversed with her speak of the furious anger of her expression as sho reprimands an attendant, succeeded instantaneously by tho utmost urbanity as she addrassed a guest."