CHINA'S GRAND OLD MAN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 375, 21 April 1908, Page 3

CHINA'S GRAND OLD MAN.

After spending 54 years of his life in the Far Fast, Sir Robert Hart, China’s “Grand Old Man,” is returning to spend his declining days in England. No foreigner knows so much of the mysterious inner working of Chinese life as Sir Robert, who, as InspectorGeneral of the Chinese Maritime Customs, has for many years controlled 8000 employees in the land of the celestials. An extraordinary fact concerning Sir Robert is that since he made his first journey to China in 1854, at the age of 19, he has only twice revisited his home in London, and for 20 years Lady Hart and his children have been waiting his return. Sir Robert is probably the only titled Englishman able to deliver a speech in fluent Chinese. By the natives he is held in awe and respect, partly because of his position as Inspector-General, but chiefly because he belongs to the very highest rank of Chinese nobility, decorations innumerable having been conferred on him, not only by the Empress of China, but also by the rulers of other foreign countries. Moreover, his ancestors for three generations have been raised, by Imperial rescript, to the highest class of Chinese mandalius.