The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 25, 1898, Page 23

THE SA Y FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY. SEPTEMBER 25, 1898. CAREER OF 23 THE MOST REMARKABLE WOMAN IN THE WORLD. She bhas just seized the reins of empire in China and has unlimited power. Shé was a poor peas‘ant's daughter, was sold into slavery, but with pluck and unusual intelligence she won her way against extraordinary obstacles to the first position in the land. AS A SLAVE GIRL BE ASKING TAUGHT HO is the most powerful wo- mz n in the world? en Victoria, upgn wh 1 ind: empi not an of worr ! fields to wo- powerful n most iculties. lave, with beauty in ellect sharpened by of the cted her to be for that and all an, once ian cruel a | The story cf t that. d that only souls are born into If a man lives his sin, he is born But ifghe under- ation of H¥s wicked- lies in e nt e: nd aw es suffic | is su 1 to be a man the | time he travels back to earth. | h 2 bellef like this as a basic prin- it is easy to see why girl ba- | re ned not at me, and are often , like so many help- dro kitte: when little Tuen- s born it was hardly sur- | that her disap father | ght it might be well to irown the mite there and then, espe- as he was poor, and it is a waste food to girls. But the vleaded, d belng a good sort ite of his poverty, the | ather ed, and her pretty name, | :ning “good luck,” was given to her | costly layette or a chris Names are cheap, and e the title was prophetic, first childhood ther but drudgery and b for the little Tuen, except that tty. pretty according rhaps, but round sht, sharp eyes, a firm Iittle red mouth. Like r, who had calculated how ra rice it would ke to feed ch if it -were let live, Tuen I of mind, and burned the his plot of iddha seemed to have vers and had not | r a miracle t gry, it wa ' to Western and piquant, set in slant- fathe re r's hu aged rs rice 1o that her father sounds, there the propo- e was ca- >d. she was She knew that mmand a good hat their purchas- young price in China ers generally provide plenty of food. | If a good bargain couid be struck she | thought th: would all be bhetter off, | E: much 1 hungry ey were, 3 i s little than the average ge, where a girl goes ay from her people to live among inge relatives, and Tuen was 0o | practical a girl to mind a small thing, or to sentimentalize over it ! This was the first instance of her ability to lead. Her father acted upon the idea, and he made a good bargain, | a5 she advised. He sold to no less a | personage than the viceroy of Lu- | Chang. The deal showed him to be | sessed of good business ability, and | is quality had the daughter inherited | good measure. | Tuen-Tson-Hsi, the little *“Good | Luck,” went into the viceroy's kitchen | as a scrub girl and general maid-of- | HER HOW TO READ. | | which chiefly cons | and modern science on my | Bible; a book, 1 ‘:n‘g land knockifZ the ashes from his MASTER ONE FAVOR: TO all-work, but at last she had plenty eat, which, combined with nce, or no ¢ v again, @ Tt mind did v aot called | and he: r of the unembr. do it that to be pleased with the wor ba to shown that ey 1 could do much to wousehold, pro- vided she ung and pretty and clever enough. Having obtained 2 favo n to ask mol But it § els or rich dre r leisure which she implored -t the of the Vice- | roy’s scepter. It was tranger still and one whic on, for > lowed to learn to read. 2. thing few Chi se not Now, th n desire, ing cla d all right d there are “learned d aplenty, but of the mas- ion all. t girl and slavi™to w little short of prepos as though a cook had s for ted ging lessons from | absurd the - quest the infatuated Vice- roy granted it, and pretty Tuen-Tson- drank deep of the literature Chin for its high-caste women, of exhortations harge all their duties as daugh- SECRET N discussing the signal and secret service of our army in the war with | Spain Golonel Graham, a retired of- ficer who served country in the Civil War, has just expressed some unique views which will be of in- t to others than those engaged,in ary affairs. “In the first place,” said the colonel, lighting a fresh cigar and placing his slippered feet comfortably on a chair, “you know that ome of the most im- portant things in connection with mod- ern warfare is gaining accurate infor- mation of the position and strength of the enemy's forc To accomplish eans have been -ountrie Captive bal- cameras, sent.up. kites, carrier have all been employed in the service of securing and transmitting to headquarters some information con- cerning the encmv. But all these ethods fail in certain conditions. For instance, our Government was for a long time uncble to-learn the where- abouts of Cervera fleet; and lack of more definite Information as to .the nish defenses of Santiago, no doubt, Thused us unnecessary loss of life in the first engagements. Now, I be- ite a secret jeve it possit ::crvhe \I\‘hose operations would be ab- solutely unknown to the enemy, involve no risk to life or limb, and yet result in s ring accurate information under, all circumstances. As 1 said at firs these views will seem extreme to so but [ have Holy Writ, ular history e to sup- ibility of what I assert. ng up some matters con- nected with the methods of warfare among the ancient Hebrews I happened to consuit, among other books, the said the colonel, smil- cizar, “which, 1 dare say, is seldom consulted by military officials general- ly. I ran across an instance of secret service which certainly, in its results, surpasses anything we have yet ac- complished by our scientific methods. Israel was at war with Syria. The Syrian King scon learned that the King of Israel was famillar with all his plans =00 0 9000 09 (@3 TUEN-TSON-HSI, DOWAGER EMPRESS OF CHINA, WHO HAS JUST TAKEN THE REINS OF GOVERNMENT FROM HER SON, THE EMPEROR. mothers , and espe- There is | describ. rI's life both | before * marria nd : {is a V ork known as “The Girl's Four Books,” in which the duties of exam- strain their do th book and galiing mus £ been to the s she read in the fir ance: “Girls, when the placed upon the gro book, for are born are SERVICE. and that whatevi Israel forestalled concluded that the: among his forces, h! n. He naturally - were Hebrew spies He called his ser- | vants together and demanded to know who was for the King of I rumber answer O king; but is in 1Isre el the wor( ha azl. None, ha, the prophet telleth the king of that thou speakest in One er. 1l find this in econd Kings, sixth chapter, twelfth verse. Now you say that thi. instance of Spe- t the prophet, this miraculous - this especial But I find that similar pow- ‘e been exercised by pagans, in where we s erting any sy tion. Among the o al divine dispens: acles of the Gre On one of Lydia, de- owers of the oracle Deiphi. He sent messengers who uld ask on a certain « what the e doing. At the e appointed, says Herodotus, the King hit upon the following to be done, as somethirg which he supposed might be dificult to detect and describe: Cut- ting up a tort and a lamb. he boiled them together in a brazen vessel, which a had a cover of brass. 7 ote the answer of the oracle,” and the colonel took up a volume of Hero- dotus from the table, and read as fol- lows: “I know the number of the sands and the measure of the sea; I know what the dumb would say; I hear him who speaks not. There comes to me the odor of tortoise and lamb's 4 flesh, seething together in a brass ves- el; beneath the flesh is brass; there is also brass above.” Laying the book down and puffing a moment at his cigar the colonel con- tinued: “Now, what kind of a power is it that enables one thus to learn what a certain individual is saying in his private chamber, or doing in his own court? TIs this power at all com- mon?" “‘Here is another instance of it. great philosopher, Pythagoras, sesged this mysterious power, if the records of his life are true. On one oc- casion, when a certain ship was seen coming into port, some persons neuar him expressed the wish that they might possess the great treasure which thev believed to be on board .the vessel Pythagoras guletly told them that the The D0s- might undertake | my | ould not think of | wife and mother are explicit- | ambitfous | und to lie, and | girl thin 00’300000000000000%000@OOO000000000OGOQ0OOOOOO000000000000000000000000000000000 OCCULT POWERS FOR | not upon the be They will be clothed with a single wrapper. A broken tile will be given them to play with. Wha do is not good, nor is it bad. rther on in this delicious literature Tuen found the teaching ihat the hus- band is heaven and the wife is earth, nd must be that of a subpect to Very little to fire ambition, indeed, is there in “The Girls' Four Books,” but two of them were written by Em- presses, and perhaps that set the young king and aspiring to the high- only thing on board was a corps subsequent investigation they much to their surprise, that thi actually the case. “Now I maintain,” said the colonel, shifting his slippered feet to the table; “that the power which could ascertain that there was a corpse on board that ship, while the ship was yet afar off, could just as _easlly ascertain how many guns and men there were, for instance, on one of Cervera’s ships while the latter were yet in Santiago harbor. It is only a question as to whether people in these days possess the powers attributed to thése an- cients; and, of course, I belleve that some do, to a certain extent; and that it can be cultivated indefinitely. My wife often tells me that some particular individual is on the way to see me long before he rings my bell. How does she get this information? I don’t know, and she doesn’t. But I believe it is a hint of this same power which we read of in connection with the prophets of the Bible and the oracles of the Greeks. I believe that with persistent tra and steady application to a particular purpose this power would be made available in military service. “England discovered long ago that in India the natives have means of sending information without telezsraphs or wires, and with a eneed that pre- cludes the idea of couriers. I have read of instances of this sort which put ail our scientific methods.to the biush. I believe t power is used by natives who have developed it by years of spe- cial training. “I am not a Swedenborgian,” said the colonel, “but in reading some memoirs of Swedenborg I ran across some re- markable instances of this same pow- er.” Taking down from some shelves an old book which the colonel said has been long out of print, he read an ac- count which is fairly summarized as follows: Swedenborg was in Gottenburg, three hundred miles from Stockholm. On a Saturday night a great fire oc- curred in his native city. Swedenborg described this fire, giving the facts of its origin, the time and place, and its progress and termination, showing that he possessed some strange power of seeing or apprehending events at a great distance. Subsequent dispatches conclusively proved the accurac™ of his statements. “The authenticity of this wonderful account is vouched for by the gteat German philésopher - Kant,” said the colonel. “No, I don’t preter1 to understand how it is done,” repiied the colonel in response to a question. *“I do not at- tribute it to spirits, so-called, but to some hidden faculty .of the human mind, which, for some reason, is not -generally developed among us mod- erns. est. he So | pret ‘would write v If she ever got to be Empress y different things. Tuen progressed, and as she got tier and smarter so she made more troubie in the Viceroy'scalm hot sehold, | and principle and the attitude of a wife toward her | one day a the wise man, proceeding on the ‘anything for a quiet life,” ne-d his young favorit very hands imperial yellow siik and | sent her off in state a present to the { Emperor, a sort of graceful acknowl- | edgment ‘of a recent de | cock’s feathers, Emperor L decoration of pea- which meant that the had moved the Viceroy one I notch higher in the social scale, left 0000000090000 099000000900000090000606 6o great, nevertheless, that the Hispano-American MAKING THE TUNIC THAT ADVANCED HER IMPERIAL NOTICE WON HER It was a great trip for the Tuen, this one forty-four years young ago, when with a beating of tom-toms and: a ~ood deal of other unnecessary fuss she was escorted to the three-walled City of Peking, where, in the heart of the town, are set the Emperor’s pal- aces. But it was a trip for which no return ticket is ever issued. She knew that, once well inside the third wall, she would never issue forth again, nor ever hehold more father or mother or friends of the Viceroy’s family. From the royal harem, “the palace of earth’s repose,” as it is called in flowery language, no woman ever de- parts alive once she has entered, and the Emperor himself rarely leaves the splendid isolation of his palace and gardens. Not that the prospect daunted Tuen. In the golden cage she saw an- other opportunity, for she felt that it was not her fate to “blush unseen,” and her purpose never once faltered. Once a secret is spoken it ceases to be a secret—it is in the air, and the beauty and wisdom of Tuev-Tsun-Hsi was soon discussed in_the ‘harem, so by and by the *“son of Huren” himself, the Emperor, began to hear of it, and naturally to be curious. He saw that she was lovely, with a soft, olive com- plexion, and lips as red as the cherry blossom, which Orientals love. As for form, she carried herself like a Queen —poor slave girl that she was—perhaps it was all an idle boast of her father’s that the blood of Tartars flowed in his veins, and the Tartars are the reail aristocrats of China. Having won the Emperor by her beauty Tuen proceed- ed to hold him by the force of her men- tality. Neyer the sort of a person to let opportunities slip, you may be sure she had learned of affairs of state from her friend the Viceroy and the visitors to his household, and the Emperor was charmed to find that she understood pu.li. happenings and the needs of the 0000000000000 HOW FRANCE MAKES HER COLONIES P@Ay. HE colonial question is one which commission, which terminated its la- is agitating the United States just | bors in June at present. When it comes to col- onies we are entirely new in tae business. But our curiosity is In view of the fact war has us with foreign possessions of our own, and that we must carefully con- sider the problem of what we are going | to do with them, any facts and figures | bearing upon the colonies of other na- tions are of great interest. The_ fifteen colonies | French rule contain a superfice of 1,877,- | 991 square miles and have a population of 15,615,427, | country amounts to $143,506, portations into France therefrom being that_are under Their trade with the home 7, the im- $73,073,415. Exports from France thereto $70,733,512. The recent delimination of the Niger territory by the Anglo-French TIMELY FACTS ABOUT FRANCE AND HER COLONIES. The following table gives an excellent idea of the commercial rela- tions between our sister republic and her colonial dependencies: Colonies and Protectorates Superfice. Population. Sq. Miles. Algeria . . 226,184 Tunis . 52,903 Guadeloupe : 657 French Guiana. s 5.052 Reunion .... 1,600 French Indo-China— Cochin-China . 37.375 Tonkin . ] Kingdom of Anam...... 162500 Kingdom of Cambo 5,000 Macdagascar and depend- encles ........ French India. Martinique ... St. Pierre and Miquelon Dahomey and depend- encies New Caledonia. Tabitl ........... Total. 9000900000000 0PPP00000000000000600 0 last, will cause some changes in the figures referring to the African colonies, but-they will not be forthcoming until some time in 1899. The béundaries fixed by the Anglo- French commission may be considered as still uncertain, as the German Colo- nial Society, on June 28. protested against them as “an infringement of German rights.” Of all her colonial trade France does the greatest amount with Algeria, the largest item of importance being wine, the aggregate being $19,410,731. The next item Is 458,343 head of sheep, val. ued at $3,107,093. In point of population St. Pierre and Miquelon, one of France's American possessions, is the smallest of all her colonies, and vet in the mat- ter of imports this little colony of only ninety-four square miles and only 6300 population, ranks second to Algeria. O@@@@@\“)09\"}@@@Q@@@@@@@@@O@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Imports Exports into from France. France. 4,420,421 $39,372,000 $42.600,000 1,600,000~ 5,000,000 4,609,000 167,099 2,000,000 2,400,000 26,839 400,000 1,909,000 169,493 3,400,000 2,200,000 2,034,453 15,000,000 6,000,000 1,500,000 1,861,381 500,003 - 1,898,646 1,057,130 660,000 640,000 & $73,013,415 $70,733,582 COPVPOVVPRPPPVIPOPPPPPIPPPO00090009® 0@ IN FAVOR AND empire quite as well as many of his j official advisers, while he trusted her infinitely more, believing her honest and single in purpose. Naturally the said advisers disiiked the new favorite, or else they began to } think the old . nperor wiser than they | had imagined, but what they were not | prepared for was the obliging death of the Empress, and after the term of courtesy mourning was over the marriage of the Emperor with Tuen- Tson-Hsi! Here was a thunderbolt. | The old Empress had been of the good | Chinese type, worshiptul, and of af- fairs of state all unknowing. She had |1eft a son and heir, and died with a sense of having done her duty accord- ing to Nue er Ching and “The Girls’ Four Books.” Tuen was different. The Emperor was just old enough to be completely swayed by his brilliant wife, clear- headed and practical as she was. Vir- tually she became the ruler of the iia- mense empire, and when an indignant statesman ventured to oppose her de- crees, as occasionally one of them would be brave enough to-do, Tuen promptly ordered the offender's head cut off, not ..guratively, but literally, with a “short, sharp chop,” and this drastic measure soon squelched any actitve desire to criticize her policy or her methods—it wasn’t safe. Bitter, indeed, was it to the average Chinaman to feel that the real power behind the ruler’s throne was one of the despised sex. Yet was Tuen mag- netic withal, and won people by her force and charm, even when they had rather not. She was always tactful, dearly as she loved power, and minis- ters of state grew to respect her ability even when they disliked the woman. ?Then the old Emperor died in the full- ness of years and Tuen became dow- ager Empress, with a weak boy for ostensibly reigning monarch. Now did Tuen-Tson-Hsi get her real innings. Already she had achieved power througl the Emperor, and now it was hers in_very truth, for what could a child King be but the most transparent of figureheads? Neither did the shrewd woman exert herself to prepare the young Emperor for his du- ties in reigning over the greatest— numerically speaking—nation in the world! She did not beat or abuse him; she worked a more subtile injury, and one for which there could be no swift uprising against her. He was a weak boy and she simply let him have his | own way. She surrounded him with - luxury, with beauties of the harem, _with idleness and dissipation. After twenty-six years of this enervating life 1 her step-son is the merest of spiritless | puppets in her capable hands. He has never ruled, though he has had the | name of ruler, and now the news comes that the powerful old lady has done what no one ever dreamed even she would dare to do—she has openly re- | ieved the Emperor of all power and all ministers are compelled to take their instructions directly from her, Li Hung Chang practically superseding the Tsung-li-Yamen. This is what the humble slave girl has risen to by means of her beauty, cleverness and diplomacy, to be abso- | lute ruler over 600,000,000 of subjects, and to have it said of her that she is the Bismarck of China; that in state- craft there is not her equal in any court in Europe! | People used to wonder why cunning old Li Hung Chang struck his colors so close to the Emperor's dowager in- stead of to the Emperor; now the world knows. He has always been more or less of a favorite of hers, though being a_fiery-tempered and exacting old lady she has more than once deprived him | of his honors and his decorations, his | yellow silk jacket and his peacock .feathers, only to become pacified later and to give these marks of favor back to the sly diplomat, who has worked 20 much commotion of late, and who is reputed to hay . sold his nation to Rus- sia. He stands in well with her and to his advice only will she listen. It is these two against the nation. Li Hung Chang as Chancellor is the | only person outside the eunuchs and ladies-in-waiting who is frequently permitted to behold her sacred pres- ence, and she lives in strict s-clusion in that palace and palace gardens which she entered forty-four years-ago. i She is now 64 years old, but the few Embassadors who are admitted to her presence are obliged to prostrate them- selves to her royal feet in an attitude of adpration and to do the kotow, which is to knock the forehead ning times upon the ground in token abasement and subjection. She ruleg her subjects with an iron hand; she it is who must be obeyed, and what China will do when Tuen leaves the palace for another wo'ld it is hard to guess,