those standpatters was Shek’s lawyer, Chang, who shared his client’s fate, much to his disgusted surprise. I am sorry William Dean Howells was not in Canton at that time to write _A Modern Instance_! General Wu Sum, with 2,000 republican provincial troops, left Canton for Swatow to put down pirates operating around that noted old city, and the famous General Ling, and General Ho came down from Nanking to assist. On March 14th the irreconcilable “Boxer” Manchu leader, Prince Tuan, exiled in Kansu province, raised the standard of revolt, with his son Ku Kwei, as a pretender to the throne. He had not the moral support of all of the imperial clan, because he had in 1900 plotted to displace Prince Chun’s emperor son, “Pu Yi”. Tuan is a shrewd, able and persistent leader. If he had not been a reactionary in 1900, he might have preserved to the Manchus a longer lease of power. The battles of the international financiers still went on at Peking, Premier Tang Shao Yi’s action in raising $5,000,000 from a Russian-Belgian syndicate on the Chinese-built Peking-Kalgan railway, incensing the international group. Tang gave a laconic interview, merely saying: “China need not necessarily put herself forever in the hands of four nations; we can deal with independents where we are able to find any. The loan was first offered to American bankers, but those American bankers who are now in the Far East would not act independently of the four nations.” Russian, Japanese and Belgian bankers seemed to fall in with Russia’s plans, as in 1896, to put China under a financial thraldom. Russia did not want a loan given to China for her army, as Russia and Japan both desire a weak army in China. The four-nation bankers now offered China $300,000,000, of which $60,000,000 was to be for army purposes. If Japan joins in this loan, it will be because she does not want to be shut out of a share in controlling China’s finances, and an apportionment of the concessions. The _National Review_ of Shanghai published at this time a caricature, showing Russia pushing old China, and “Foreign Grafter” pushing New China, out of the way, while North China, a clam, had shut its shell on the beak of South China, a heron. The Chinese fable of the bird and the shellfish was quoted as follows: “A bird attacked an open shellfish on the beach; but the shellfish closed his shell with a snap, and the bird was caught. Both were then helpless, and fell an easy prey to some covetous fishermen.” Nearly all the Japanese papers, including the influential Tokio _Nichi_ and _Jiji_, and the Osaka _Mainichi_, came out attacking Yuan, and endeavoring to stir up differences between North and South China. If Japan could prove that Chinese conditions were unstable, there evidently would be more plausibility for Japan’s possible intervention in Manchuria! On March 16th, Premier Tang Shao Yi announced a provisional northern cabinet as follows, until the National Assembly of seven delegates to a province could meet.