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. May this not
account in some measure for the attitude assumed by the Empress
Dowager towards the Boxer superstitions of 1900, and their
pretentions to be able at will to call to their aid legions of
spirit-soldiers, while at the same time they were themselves
invulnerable to the bullets of their enemies?
It was when Miss Chao was ten years old that the conflict known
as the Opium War was brought to an end. It has been said that
when the Emperor was asked to sanction the importation of opium,
he answered, "I will never legalize a traffic that will be an
injury to my people," but whether this be true or not, it is
admitted by all that the central government was strongly opposed
to the sale and use of the drug within its domains. It is
unfortunate, to say the least, that the first time the Chinese
came into collision with European governments was over a matter
of this kind, and it is to the credit of the Chinese commissioner
when the twenty thousand chests of opium, over which the dispute
arose, were handed over to him, he mixed it with quicklime in
huge vats that it might be utterly destroyed rather than be an
injury to his people. They may have exhibited an ignorance of
international law, they may have manifested an unwise contempt
for the foreigner, but it remains a fact of history that they
were ready to suffer great financial loss rather than get revenue
from the ruin of their subjects, and that England went to war for
the purpose of securing indemnity for the opium destroyed
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