A notice from the Society of Dorset Men in London revealed that people from the county spoke their own form of English. Try to decipher this: 'This is to let 'ee know that the Do'set Men in Lon'ontown will teake dinner agean, vor the ninth time ov axen in the King's hll o' the Holborn Restaurant ... We shall gather together at ha'f-past zix in the evenen, an zet down to teable an' vall to at zeben ... The dinner committee will be martel pleased to zee 'ee come and put yer lags under the teable agean and enjay the good feare. Bring yer friends along wi 'ee; an' if so be that ye do wat to zit alongside o' anybody in partikler, tell us who 'tis an'wel' do our best to put yer chairs together.'
On May 8, the Female Suffrage Bill was defeated in the House of Commons 266 to 219. The bill would have given the vote to every woman over the age of 25, who, if she were a man, would be entitled to be registered in respect of a household qualification, or if the wife of a man, entitled to be registered if she has lived in the same household for the period required. There was no enthusiasm for the bill. 'The advocates are divided among themselves and many are openly disgusted at the excesses and outrages by the militants.' If approved, 6 million women would have been able to vote. An editorial said: 'The suffragette is becoming a veritable nuisance abroad and an absolute danger at home. If we are to reckon that the militant virago is a type of the modern woman, then the race is surely degenerating. We have heard the faint echo of her imitators in China - a country which tries to emulate the western world and seeks to pulsate with modern doctrines.'
In a report from Chenchowfu, under the heading 'Execution methods in Honan', the first execution was carried out there by the new method of shooting. However, it 'proved to be a very unfortunate affair'. As the criminal was led out of the city gate, a group of officials escorted him and he ridiculed them for doing so. 'This angered them so much, they ordered him to be set down right there and be dispatched on the spot and, the line of fire being down the street, the result was that one bystander was killed and two wounded.' One of the wounded died later.
Debate raged in the House of Commons over the Indo-Chinese opium trade in a report on May 9. The Reverend J. Towyn Jones moved a resolution: 'The House again records its conviction that ... the trade is morally indefensible and calls upon the government to release China from her treaty obligations to admit the drug and allow her to prohibit the importation of the stocks accumulated at the treaty ports and Hong Kong.' However, 'Mr Keswick declared with his knowledge of 19 years in China that opium smoking was no more an evil than the taking of a glass of beer or wine. They found cranks dealing with the teetotal question. We made a bargain with China, whereby we were to forgo money advantages in order to assist China to regenerate herself. To quote the abolitionists, we have done our part and the Chinese are not doing it.'
Under the heading 'The White Man's Burden', a professor at Kyoto Imperial University contributed to a discourse on the special characteristics of the white races. At issue was proposed anti-Japanese legislation that violated the constitution. At a public meeting on May 10, Dr Ichimura outlined the five salient characteristics of white men. 'White men consider that they alone are human beings and coloured people are on a lower scale of creation; whites are extremely selfish, insist on their own interests to the utmost, and persist in unreasonable treatment of those whom they regard as their inferiors; when white men grasp an inch, they grasp an ell, and to make a concession to them is to lay up a store of humiliation; white men excel the Japanese both in greatness and vileness; and white men worship money as omnipotent and believe that it is the key to all things.'