Whether the Kaiser feels the humiliation accredited to him or not, is rather doubtful. At any rate, he viewed the storm with superb outward indifference, causing it to be understood, while he was enjoying himself on a hunting trip with the heir to the Austrian throne, that he was “heedless of the exaggerations of public criticism which he regarded as incorrect.” He is still The State—chance confidences with interviewers notwithstanding. But his subjects may not be quite so passive as before. [Illustration: Freight Rates Increase] Events in China One of the strangest, strongest characters in history passed from the stage when the Dowager Empress of China, best known to us as Tsi An, yielded to Death—her only conqueror—some time in November last. Born a slave, the story of how her wit, beauty, determination and utter unscrupulousness placed an empire boasting at least 400,000,000 subjects at her feet, is well known. For fifty years she reigned an absolute despot, while other nations rose and fell, maps were changed, the tide of Occidental civilization began to beat down the ancient barriers of her realm. Knowing that the summons had come to her, did she yet stretch out her still powerful hand and remove the weakling Emperor, whose demise preceded her own by so short a time? A physical wreck—a virtual prisoner and perhaps the victim of some brain stupefying drug, there were still dangers to be feared to the dynasty she so long upheld, and all her record shows she would not have hesitated at any step necessary to preserve the reign of the Manchus and repel the efforts which reformers might make, through Tsai-ti’ien, to hasten forward a foreign type of government. Much evil is said of the Dowager Empress—and much evil perhaps she did, according to some standards; yet she selected her ministers with some wisdom and can scarcely be censured for refusing to let herself and the Chinese masses—both intensely conservative—be harried into “reforms” for which they were unprepared. The national and racial pride of such highly informed Chinese as had received not only the education appropriate to their class at home, but who had enjoyed foreign advantages, is in nowise typical—and it must be remembered that Tsi An was dealing with “teeming millions” indeed. She was not stubbornly unprogressive, as various Imperial edicts issued within the past decade demonstrated. Indeed, it was not long since that one assurance was given that a Constitution would be granted within nine years.