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The fever for reading the same books that Kuang Hsu had read was
so great as to tax to the utmost the presses of the port cities
to supply the demand, and the leaders of some of the publication
societies feared that a condition had arisen for which they were
unprepared. Books written by such men as Drs. Allen, Mateer,
Martin, Williams and Legge were brought out in pirated
photographic reproductions by the bookshops of Shanghai and sold
for one-tenth the cost of the original work. Authors, to protect
themselves, compelled the pirates to deliver over the stereotype
plates they had made on penalty of being brought before the
officials in litigation if they refused. But during the three
years the Emperor had been studying these foreign books, hundreds
of thousands of young scholars all over the empire had been doing
the same, preparing themselves for whatever emergency the studies
of the young Emperor might bring about.
One day during the early spring a young Chinese reformer came to
me to get a list of the best newspapers and periodicals published
in both England and America. I inquired the reason for this
strange move, and he said:
"The young Chinese reformers in Peking have organized a Reform
Club. Some of them read and speak English, others French, others
German and still others Russian, and we are providing ourselves
with all the leading periodicals of these various countries that
we may read and study them
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