All opium dens must be closed within six months, after which time
no opium-pipes nor lamps may be either made or sold. Though shops

for the sale of the drug may continue for ten years, the limit of
the traffic.

The government promises to provide medicine for the cure of the
habit, and encourages the formation of anti-opium societies, but

will not allow these societies to discuss other political
matters.

Next to China Great Britain is the party most affected by this
movement towards reform. When this edict was issued Great Britain

was shippingannually fifty thousand chests of opium to the
Chinese market, but at once agreed that if China was sincere in

her desire for reform, and cut off her own domestic productions
at the rate of ten per cent. per annum, she would decrease her

trade at a similar rate. It is unfortunate that the Empress
Dowager should have died before this reform had been carried to a

successful culmination, but whatever may be the result of the
movement the fact and the credit of its initiation will ever

belong to her.
Such are some of the special reform measures instituted by the

Empress Dowager, but in addition to these she has seen to it that
the Emperor's efforts to establish a Board of Railroads, a Board

of Mines, educational institutions on the plans of those of the
West, should all be carried out. She has not only done away with

the old system of examinations, but has introduced a new scheme
by which all those who have graduated from American or European

colleges may obtain Chinese degrees and be entitled to hold
office under the government, by passing satisfactory

examinations, not a small part of which is the diploma or
diplomas which they hold. Such an examination has already been

held and a large number of Western graduates, most of them
Christian, were given the Chu-jen or Han-lin degrees.

VI
The Empress Dowager--As an Artist

There is no genre that the Chinese artist has not attempted. They
have treated in turn mythological, religious and historical

subjects of every kind; they have painted scenes of daily
familiar life, as well as those inspired by poetry and romance;

sketched still life, landscapes and portraits. Their highest
achievements, perhaps, have been in landscapes, which reveal a

passionate love for nature, and show with how delicate a charm,
how sincere and lively a poetic feeling, they have interpreted

its every aspect. They have excelled too at all periods in the
painting of animals and birds, especially of birds and flying

insects in conjunction with flowers.
--S. W. Bushell in "Chinese Art."

VI
THE EMPRESS DOWAGER--AS AN ARTIST

One day the head eunuch from the palace of the Princess Shun
called at our home to ask Mrs. Headland to go and see the

Princess. While sitting in my study and looking at the Chinese
paintings hanging on the wall, two of which were from the brush

of Her Majesty, he remarked:
"You are fond of Chinese art?"

"I am indeed fond of it," I answered.
"I notice you have some pictures painted by the Old Buddha," he

continued, referring to the Empress Dowager by a name by which
she is popularly known in Peking.

"Yes, I have seven pictures from her brush," I answered.
"Do you happen to have any from the brush of the Lady Miao, her

painting teacher?" he inquired.
"I am sorry to say I have not," I replied. "I have tried

repeatedly to secure one, but thus far have failed. I have
inquired at all the best stores on Liu Li Chang, the great curio

street, but they have none, and cannot tell me where I can find
one."

"No, you cannot get them in the stores; she does not paint for
the trade," he explained.

"I am sorry," I continued, "for I should like very much to get
one. I am told she is a very good artist."

"Oh, yes, she paints very well," he went on in a careless way.
"She lives over near our palace. We have a good many of her

paintings. They are very easily gotten."
"It may be easy for you to get them," I replied, "but it is no

small task for me."
"If you want some," he volunteered, "I'll get some for you."

"That would be very kind of you," I answered, "but how would you
undertake to get them?"

"Oh, I would just steal a few and bring them over to you."
It is hardly necessary to assure my readers as I did him that I

could not approve of this method of obtaining paintings from the
Lady Miao's brush. However he must have told the Princess of my

desire, for the next time Mrs. Headland called at the palace the
Princess entertained her by showing her a number of paintings by

the Lady Miao, together with others from the brush of the Empress
Dowager.

"And these are really the work of Her Majesty?" said Mrs.
Headland with a rising inflection.

"Yes, indeed," replied the Princess. "I watched her at work on
them. They are genuine."

It was some weeks thereafter that Mrs. Headland was again invited
to call and see the Princess, and to her surprise she was

introduced to the Lady Miao, with whom and the Princess she spent
a very pleasant social hour or two. When she was about to leave,

the Princess, who is the youngest sister of the Empress Yehonala,
brought out a picture of a cock about to catch a beetle, which

she said she had asked Lady Miao to paint, and which she begged
Mrs. Headland to receive as a present from the artist and

herself.
During the conversation Mrs. Headland remarked that the Empress

Dowager must have begun her study of art many years ago.
"Yes," said Lady Miao. "We were both young when she began.

Shortly after she was taken into the palace she began the study
of books, and partly as a diversion, but largely out of her love

for art, she took up the brush. She studied the old masters as
they have been reproduced by woodcuts in books, and from the

paintings that have been preserved in the palace collection, and
soon she exhibited rare talent. I was then a young woman, my

brothers were artists, my husband had passed away, and I was
ordered to appear in the palace and work with her."

"You are a Chinese, are you not, Lady Miao?"
"Yes," she replied, "and as it has not been customary for Chinese

ladies to appear at court during the present dynasty, I was
allowed to unbind my feet, comb my hair in the Manchu style, and

wear the gowns of her people."
"And did you go into the palace every day?"

"When I was young I did. Ten Thousand Years"--another method of
speaking of the Empress Dowager--"was very enthusiastic over her

art work in those days, and often we spent a large part of the
day either with our brushes, or studying the history of art, the

examples in the books, or the works of the old masters in the
gallery. One of her favourite presents to her friends, as you

probably know, is a picture from her own brush, decorated with
the impress of her great jade seal, the date, and an appropriate

poem by one of the members of the College of Inscriptions. And no
presents that she ever gives are prized more highly by the

recipients than these paintings."