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. He was not. If we may credit the reports that came from
the palace in those days, he had a temper of his own. If he were
denied anything he wanted, he would lie down on his baby back on
the dirty ground and kick and scream and literally "raise the
dust" until he got it. My wife tells me that not infrequently
when she called at the Chinese homes, and they set before her a
dish of which she was especially fond, and she had eaten of it as
much as she thought she ought, the ladies would ask in a
good-natured way in reply to some of her remarks about her
voracious appetite, "Shall we get down and knock our heads on the
floor, and beg you not to eat too much, and make yourself sick,
like the eunuchs do to the Emperor?" There is nothing to wonder
at that Kuang Hsu, without parental restraint, and fawned upon by
cringing eunuchs and serving maids, should have been a spoiled
child; the wonder is that he was not worse than he was.
One day in 1901 while the court was absent at Hsian, and the
front gate of the Forbidden City was guarded by our "boys in
blue," I obtained a pass and visited the imperial palace. The
apartments of the Emperor consisted of a series of one-story
Chinese buildings, with paper windows around a large central pane
of glass, tile roof and brick floor. The east part of the
building appeared to be the living-room, about twenty by
twenty-five feet. The window on the south side extended the
entire length of the room, and was filled with clocks from end to
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