Yesterday was the first anniversary of the independence of China; it may be because it is so far away, but they seem to have had _their_ revolution with very little sound of breakage. There was a reception at the Chinese Legation during the generous hours of 4 to 10. I went at about 5. I got up to go four times, and each time the _chargé d’affaires_ caught me at the door and said, “You have been absent eight years--no, I mean eight months--and I can’t let you go.” I finally ran the blockade at 7.30, promising some insistent Oriental near the outer door that I would return. All the diplomats were there. I found von Hintze, like a visitant from another world, sitting, inscrutable, by the handsome, buxom wife of the Guatemalan minister. She was in black lace over orange silk, making my white tailor suit seem very severe. Stalewski, the Russian minister, was standing near, waiting for his tea. Sir L. and Lady C. came in at 6 o’clock only, then Madame Lefaivre--the Occidental diplomats naturally gravitating toward one another. Finally, at 7, when the rooms down-stairs were packed like sardine-boxes, we were directed up-stairs, where a handsome “champagne lunch” was served. It was after this that I made my escape. The wife of the _chargé_, and some other Oriental ladies, in appalling Western costumes, stood in close formation near the door from start to finish, wearing an unfading Oriental smile. N. spent the afternoon hunting for the Dictator, having been unable to track him down since the famous _coup_. He hopes to induce him to clemency regarding the Deputies. Huerta has a very effective way of dropping out of a situation--just subtracting himself and reappearing when events have moved on. He preserves, according to his edict of the 11th, the full powers vested in the executive, adding generously the powers of Gobernación (Interior), Hacienda (Treasury), and War, though only for the time absolutely necessary for the re-establishment of the legislative power. By the powers of Gobernación he has declared invalid the exemption of Deputies from arrest and makes them subject to the jurisdiction of the tribunals if found guilty of any offense or crime; most of the Deputies are only getting what they deserve. There is certainly reason to complain of their lack of public spirit; there seems little or no available material here from which to build a self-governing state, and a dictator (or intervention) is what they need. Juarez took the fear of hell away from them some fifty years ago; Madero took the respect for the _supremo gobierno_ (supreme power) as typified by the strong hand of Diaz. There seems nothing left to hold them--those fifteen millions, with their sixty-three dialects and their thousand idiosyncrasies of race and climate.