On December 26th, Yuan and the Manchu princes wired Tang Shao Yi from Peking that they would leave the decision as to a form of government to a national convention of the twenty-one provinces, the delegates to meet as soon as possible. The harmony which prevailed in the conferences at Shanghai between Sun, Wu and Li’s representatives was delightful to those interested in Chinese progress. The harmony which prevailed between the missionaries and the revolutionists was also inspiring. In a village of Hupeh province (Taiping) the people insisted that Mr. Landahl, of the Netherlands Mission, should head the local Safety League which was maintaining order, and they pushed that astonished gentleman to the head in the successful pursuit of notorious pirates who were injuring the causes of both revolutionists and imperialists. One notorious brigand of Honan province, named Wang, collected a band of 2,000 robbers, and at Harbin in Manchuria a band of Hunghutz captured an imperial treasure train with half a million of money. Vast preparations should now have been made to protect Chinese and foreigners in the north from massacre, if the National Assembly should on convening declare for a republic. There could not but be bitterness when only 17 million Manchus abdicated the rule of 400 millions Chinese, and the widest and most absolute throne the earth has known, wider than Pharaoh’s, Alexander’s, Xerxes’, Cæsar’s, Charlemagne’s, Baber Mogul’s, or Tsar’s. The problem of ruling 17 million Manchu discontents was a greater one than the long dominion which the subsidized Manchus had enjoyed over 400 millions of disunited and supine Chinese. The republic of China has mighty problems before it. Let all the world help her; above all, let education, hope and creature comforts be bestowed as quickly as possible. There is glorious altruistic work ahead of everybody for the whole of one’s life.