The Chinese find it difficult to understand the freedom of intercourse which characterizes the sexes in the West. They regard such social freedom as being difficult to harmonize with modesty and morality. As a rule, Chinese women are modest and chaste. But it is thought that these are best assured by restricting their social freedom. On the streets the women, with the exception of the lewd, appear with becoming modesty and decorum. Notwithstanding the advantage that must come from the limiting of woman's sphere of influence, examples are not wanting in which Chinese women have exerted their native powers to a conspicuous degree in moulding the history of their times. Through the isolation of the women, they become naturally more superstitious than the men; and, as might be surmised, the former are the stronghold of the ancient religious faiths of the Chinese. And yet none of the ancient religions nor the philosophies of the country have done much to elevate the feminine half of the nation. The best the Buddhist priest can hold out to the pious woman is the hope that in the next transmigration her soul may be born a man's. Some women of the Celestial Empire have held commanding positions of political influence. Whether a woman might occupy an influential place in the management of Chinese public affairs has depended somewhat upon the character of the ruling dynasty. And while queens are not possible in China, because sons alone may hold the sceptre, women have been known to exert such influence in the matter of government as to be practically supreme. There have been a number of cases of empresses regent. There were two such instances during the Ming dynasty which were quoted as justifying a more recent regency that has been one of the most remarkable on record in any land. When the Emperor Hien-fung died on August 22, 1861, his son Chiseang, then but six years of age, was proclaimed emperor in his stead, under a regency composed of eight men. By a bold _coup d'état_, Prince Kung, brother of Hien-fung, succeeded, by the aid of the army, in driving this regency from power and in proclaiming a new one composed of two empresses: Tsi An, the principal wife of the late Hien-fung, and Tszu-Hszi, the mother of the young emperor. Neither of these royal women knew the Manchu language, and Prince Kung was the power behind them, and was rewarded with the post of prime minister under the two empresses. It was not long, however, before an edict was issued degrading the prince, whose growing power and arrogance the empresses feared. And just here emerges the evidence that the prince was dealing with one of the most astute and aggressive women of the world, Tszu-Hszi, a woman who has compelled the world to reckon with her presence for half a century.