Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1910 — WAS SHE A DEMON? [ARTICLE]

WAS SHE A DEMON?

Difference* of Opinion Kegarilas Late Empress Dcmkcer of China. The late great Empress Dowager of China had luxurious tastes and was fond of pomp in all of her doings, writes Frank Q. Carpenter from Peking, China. She spent money like water, and used fabulous sums to keep up her palaces. During the last year of her life she had planned a new home at the Summer Palace, and had ordered the architects to draw the designs. The buildings were to cost 4,000,000 taels, or about $3,000,000, and the work was to have been begun in 1909. The plans were made, but, owing to the Dowager’s death, they will not be carried out. I am told that her majesty gave equally elaborate directions as to her mausoleum and that it is being constructed on a magnificent scale. One hears all sorte of stories about the Empress Dowager. All acknowledge her ability and say she will rank among the great queens of all time. There is no question as to her strength of character. Some exalt her to the skies as an angel of mercy add light, while others say she was a demon Incarnate, and they compare her private life to that of the Russian Empress, Catherine the Great. A* to her demoniac character, her detractors say she poisoned her husband, the Emperor Hsien Feng, and thereby became ruler In connection with another Empress, whom he married before her. They suspect that the death of that Empress was caused by the Dowager’s machinations and plots, who then reigned supreme during the minority of her son, the Emperor Tung Chleh, who was a baby when chosen. When Tung Shieh had reached the age of 15, at which time he might aspire to rule Independently, he died of small pox, and there are some'mallcloua enough to say that his mother, the Empress Dowager, assisted him on the fairy ride to a far country. They allege that be had begun to resist her domination, and that the snmll-pox was really an overdose of oplnm pttls. They say also that after his death the suicide of his wife, the Empress, who threw herself into a well, wa*-as-sisted by this same great woman, and that other crimes of a similar nature may be laid to her charge. There are many, people, however, who will tell you that all these charges of her being an assassin are false and malicious.