encouraging learning, reform in taxes and dues, putting down the likin tax, reform of the laws, increase of official salaries, commissions to be sent abroad, students studying abroad, establishing of police, drilling of reserve soldiers, selection of generals, appointment of (foreign) advisers, great increase of navy, the pacification of Tibet and Ili, &c. All these should be carried out altogether and at once, not one after the other. The Emperor well knew this, but the difficulty was that he had no power, and could not carry them out at once. He therefore first stopped the essaysystem and competition for caligraphy, and started (foreign) schools and newspapers for agriculture, mechanics, and commerce. He often took my memorials and laid them before the Grand Council and the Foreign Office, to consider, and stringently commanded them not to return them with empty phrases, for he desired their co-operation to support him in order to prevent opposition from the EmpressDowager. But there were aged Ministers of the old school, who, though frequently rebuked, did not learn. Above all, there was the chief obstruction in the Empress-Dowager, who hated him. Whatever he asked was refused by her. Therefore, of the hundred things which the Emperor and myself wished to reform we could not get one carried out. If it had not been for the Dowager's opposition, by the end of the 11th moon the old evils would have been all removed, new government would have been working everywhere, the rules of the Cabinet would have been very complete, the rules of the twelve departments would have been most minute, the laws would have been changed, a large sum of money for reforms would have been provided, police would have been established, military would have been drilling, the capital would have been removed south, (foreign) advisers would have been secured, and the beginnings of all things seen, the whole empire heartily uniting.

But the Peking officials, high and low, were of the old school, and were afraid to lose their posts if there was to be reform, and so raised all sorts of rumours. The Manchu high officials are still more ignorant of foreign affairs, and Yung Luh, the Viceroy of Chihli, was bent on not having reform. Hwai Ta Pū, the President of the Board of Rites, obstructed the presentation of memorials on reform, and was greatly disliked by the Emperor. When the Emperor dismissed the President of the Board of Rites, his friends, the Ministers of the Imperial household, knelt round the Dowager, and said that the Emperor was making wild reforms and would soon ruin the empire, that the Emperor was about to appoint Yuen Shih Hai to consult the Board of War, and put an end to the Dowager's authority.

At this the Viceroy, Yung Luh, telegraphed for General Tung Fu Siang to bring his army to Peking, and General Nie to look after Tientsin, and prayed that the Emperor's authority should be ended.

On the 29th day of the 7th moon, after the Dowager had inquired of the Emperor about these things, the Emperor secretly commanded myself and Yung Tui, Lin Shio, Liu Kwang Ti, and Tan Sze Tung, the four Ministers of the new Cabinet, to devise means for saving ourselves. The Cabinet thought of General Yuen Sheh Kai [formerly famous as the Chinese Resident in Corea during the early stormy years]. When Yuen Sheh Kai had just gone to Peking Yung Luh took his soldiers to the capital. Then the Dowager, on the 6th day of the 8th moon (September 21), came to Court and put the Emperor aside.

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At this time the intention was to assassinate the Emperor. edict was issued throughout the Empire to find a good doctor, a thing which had not been done in China before for a thousand years. Wishing to put the blame of his death on his illness, they first published it to the world, so that afterwards they might put him to death.

Fortunately the foreign Ministers talked of the matter, and a doctor was sent in to see the Emperor; therefore the Government could not after this lay violent hands on him. But during this time they were making daily search for me, because, the order said, I had given poison to the Emperor, and so the Shanghai Taotai on this account had secret orders to arrest me. As this turned out to be false, the orders then were that, as I was the leader of a rebellious party, I was to be deprived of my office; the orders also stated that it was because my writings upset the Government, therefore my books were to be burnt; and other orders were that I advised surrounding I Ho Yuen (the Dowager's palace) with soldiers, and rebellion against her authority; therefore I was to be arrested. Thus the reasons given in the various orders are contradictory.

Yet they sent 3000 soldiers to Peking, shut the gates of the city twice, sent orders for fast cruisers, and telegraphed throughout the Empire to catch me and seize my whole family and relations. My relations within about ten li of my home all fled. They also tried to seize my disciple, Liang Chi Chao, and all his relations.

On the 13th of the 8th moon (September 28) six men were beheaded-viz., my brother, Kang Kwang In; a censor, Yang Sheu Shia, together with the four Ministers of the Reform Cabinet, Yang, Lin, Tan, and Liu.

The Emperor, finding that the great Ministers were of the old school and useless, and that he had no power to put them away, had just begun to take the last-mentioned four men as his Prime Ministers in the Reform Cabinet. Yang was formerly a Censor, and strongly urged reform. Even after the Emperor was put aside he memorialised the Empress-Dowager to resign her authority to the Emperor, and it was on this account he was put to death. The young Empress's two brothers, Wêng Tung Ho, the late Prime Minister; Li Tuan Fen, Pre

sident of the Board of Rites; Chang Yiu Hwan, Vice-President of the Board of Revenue; Chang Peh Hi, Sub-Chancellor of the Grand Secretariat and Vice-President of the Board of Rites; Kwo Pu Tung, Vice-President of the Board of Rites; Sung Peh Luh, a Censor, the Chancellor of Education in Canton province; two successive chancellors in Hunan, several Hanlins, Chen Pao Chen, the Governor of Hunan; Tan Ki Seun, Governor of Hupeh; and Tseng Ho, his successor as Governor of Hupeh; and Hwang Tsun Hien, Minister Elect for Japan; and several lesser officials and secretaries of the Government Boards in Peking, for advocating reform or Western learning, or recommending Kang Yeu Wei, or being his disciples, were ali punished in different ways-some imprisoned, some put under watch, some deprived of their rank, some ordered to be arrested; and others who were in sympathy with reforms are now at the mercy of anti-reform mandarins throughout the empire, being squeezed out of their property in order to be let alone.

As to the rest, about a hundred founders of societies for the protection of our country, and about a hundred editors of newspapers, and promoters of new education are all in danger of being arrested at any time.

On the 11th of the 8th moon (September 26) the useless officials removed by the Emperor were all restored; literary men of the people were forbidden to memorialise the throne, and official newspapers were also forbidden. The new schools of Western learning founded by the Emperor in all the provinces were stopped. On the 20th of that moon the essay-system of examination and caligraphy was restored; examination in the new learning was discontinued, and the study of agriculture, mechanice, and commerce, &c., became useless; the governors of the provinces throughout the empire were commanded to suppress the newspapers and at once arrest the editors.

On the 26th of that moon it was forbidden to form societies, and the promoters were ordered to be arrested. Collecting revenue in kind was still to go on, instead of commuting into money (as had been done by the Emperor), and the offices of Governors of Hupeh, Yunan, and Kwangtung, which had been abolished, as these provinces had viceroys, were again restored; military examination by bows and arrows, by swords, and by lifting heavy stones, which had been replaced by foreign drill by the Emperor, was now restored. All reforms were reversed and reformers put in bonds; thus all the Empire became dumb, and dared not speak about Western ways. This has now gone on for more than six months. Whoever speaks of Western ways is regarded as a dangerous man, and persons look up and down the road lest they should be found out, and China is thus bound to old ways more than ever. It only leans on Russia, and in this way allows itself to be easily divided up and ruined. Alas!

KANG YEU WEI.

THE SEVEN SENSES OF FISHES.

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10 live in the sea must be very different from living in the atmosphere. The softness, clearness, and lightness of the latter make life more secure and the pleasures of existence more safe than is possible in a medium which is nearly a thousand times heavier, and which is often so violently disturbed as to lash into fragments every thing fragile existing near the shore. At times, when the war of the elements means death to all coming within range of its fury, the five senses seem very weak and inefficient defences for meeting all the exigences of life under these violent conditions. Since all the senses are tactile, the five organs in use in the heavier element must be toned and modified to receive impressions in keeping with the weight of their surroundings; and this must entail a dull record of life, without some other additions, except possibly in the case of the sense of smell. But in the sixth and seventh senses the balance is fully made up to most of the fishes through their calling in the use of magnetism and electricity.

Like man generally, nearly all the fishes have strong homing instincts, but their intention is more divided in its purpose; usually fishes have a summer and a winter residence, often far apart from each other. If man had to live in these different localities, with no better mental activities or senses than he now possesses, the worry consequent on following these weak sensations would be a thousand times more perplexing in the sea than on land. For with the violence of the tides, the fierceness of the storms, and the free and overwhelming vastness of the ocean, the neighbourhood of the home at times would be a most embarrassing place to find.

Again, the sea is not always a crystal medium, as will be seen further on, for it is continually receiving excretal matter and other

waste from creatures inhabiting the land, through its rains and rivers. But this is only a trifle compared with the quantity of fecal matter, in its many forms, which is sown broadcast in the sea by its own countless inhabitants. The matter sent there from the land is in solid form until diluted with water; but the waste from the denizens of the deep is about of the specific gravity of water, and hence is found floating everywhere, until the ocean is often made so foul that the fisherman cannot see his net even in the day-time for more than two or three feet down.

Again, it is nothing uncommon for the excessive spermatozoa of the herring alone to whiten the water for scores of square miles, and to make it so thick that objects can only be seen a few inches under water. And often in the month of March the sea seems polluted by vast masses of strings of brown mucus, filling water, mile after mile, to such an extent that fishing nets have been known to be carried to the bottom with the weight of slime entangled in the meshes.

Then every year, sometimes in March, but generally in April and May, if rain is ample, we have the spores of the olive seaweed in untold millions floating in the sea. Their depth it is difficult to find, but on looking down it sometimes seems hard to determine whether the ocean have more of water or spores in it. How far the spores extend at one time it is not easy to say, but it is nothing uncommon for the mass to surround the whole of the coasts of Cornwall, including the Scilly Isles, stretching some twelve miles out from land. When fully developed these spores are something like rice grains in form and size, and they colour the sea a deep olive.

And these are soon followed by the spores of the red and green weeds, together with the spawn of the mussels, barnacles, pectins, and sea-shells generally, all of which in their turn, or in combination with each other, still go to darken the sea.

Then we have the foul odours of the ocean often throughout the spring months. The first in the succession is that caused by the breaking up and dissolving of the first crop of spores; and the like comes on again and again, with some weeks between, until the various crops are exhausted. Beside this we seem to have the decomposition of masses of surplus spermatozoa from some other fishes, or from creatures living in or on the sea bottom; for in the late spring or early summer, at times, vast areas of the depths give out stinking fishy effluvia, which are almost unbearable, and sometimes make fishermen ill. When the water is in this dirty and offensive state most of the surface-living fishes will leave it, especially mackerel.

Again, we have the Infusoria in their many varieties, which are generally microscopic and almost transparent; but, nevertheless, they are there in their untold and incalculable myriads. When seen at night under favourable conditions in all their phosphoric