AN EMPEROR TOO POOR TO MARRY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1663, 22 November 1887, Page 3

AN EMPEROR TOO POOR TO MARRY.

An autocrat semi-divine can afford to be frank in addressing his people. The Emperor of China finds it necessary to adjourn his marriage, and he does not hesitate to give, as his first reason, an empty treasury, This is a very grave consideration, no doubt, when the expenses of the ceremony, in public rejoicings alone, are put at a million sterling; the outlay upon presents; rewards, and so forth among tbe courtiers is not reckoned. But the second cause stated has more interest. The most sympathetic of men could not feel very cleepty for a Chinese monarch; but in a mild way one regrets to hear that the young Emperor's health will not allow him to marry for two years. Certainly, if he does not find himself in the most robust condition he acts prudently in waiting awhile; "Wedlock is a serious obligation to all of us; but for the Emperor of China it is downright awful. The description which Marco Polo gave of the domestic arrangements of Cublai Khan still applies to his successor of to-day—in theory, if not quite in practice. He has four wives; hut that is nothing at all. Each wife has about 300 ladies in attendance, who regard their mistress' husband as their master, hut this is not much. The household of each wife reckons some 10,000 persons-—in theory nowadays, as we have said—but in fact also, an enormous number, mostly female. The computation begins to grow alarming, but there is much besides. Every second year the daughters of the nobility are surveyed, and some 500 of them drafted into the palace. Under these conditions, sensible men will think that the longer His Majesty postpones marrying the wiser he will Bhow himself.