For the first time since the beginning of the revolutionary movement in China the Imperialist cause had scored an undeniable success, always excepting the savage burning of Hankow. The success of the Imperialists was rightly ascribed to their superior equipment and discipline, and that their loyalty to Peking, as well as their efficiency, had stood the supreme test of battle was in itself an event of first-rate importance. The strong feeling which has grown up almost all over China against the Manchu had still to be reckoned with. At this time it was an amusing diversion to read the opinions being printed in the home Press. After referring to the feeling among the proletariat against the Manchus, a writer in an editorial in the London _Times_ said that "again a middle {134} term may conceivably be found in the suggestion that, as an alternative to the withdrawal of the Court from Peking, the present Regent should resign his office into the hands of a Chinese Regent or Council of Regency. The singular ceremony which took place a few days ago in Peking, when the Regent, in the name of the infant Emperor, made atonement before the 'heavenly spirits' of the Imperial ancestors for the responsibility which he has to bear in the present troubles, may be taken as something more than a mere formal acknowledgment of the gravity of the crisis. In the solemn oath of allegiance to the new constitutional regime taken by the Regent, there is, in so many words, an admission that the Dynasty is in danger; and so grave an admission is, we imagine, at least as unprecedented as the circumstances which have provoked it. If it truly represents the chastened spirit of the rulers of China, it can hardly fail to make a deep impression upon the masses of the Chinese people, whose traditional reverence for the Throne as a sacred {135} institution dates back to time immemorial, and has survived numberless revolutions in the past which, however disastrous to the occupants for the time being of the Throne, never permanently affected its inherent prestige."