LUNGCHOW-MENGTSZ
Tidewaiter-F. Fontaine
Rev. Crocq, Taiping
1035.
Clerk--Lo Tsak-kwan
Medical Officer--Dr. F. Pélofi
IMPERIAL COMMISSIONER OF THE FRONTIER
OF
KWAN-SI-Taotai
and General
Teehuang Van Koan
Secretaries-Yang, Chèng
MISSION DU KOuang-si
Rev. H. Costenoble, Lungchow
Rev. P. H. Coste, Kweiping
Rev. Berthand, Pingnan
局總政郵州龍清大
POST OFFICE, IMPERIAL CHINESE
District Postmaster-K. H. von Lind-
holm (ex officio)
Postal Clerks-Sung Sik, Hsieh Chiaén,
Lin Han
Postal Agenices: Shuikow, Siatung,
Pingsiang, Ningming, Taiping, Hai- yüan, Shangszè, Kuan tsien-yai
MENGTSZ
自蒙 Mung-tsu
The
This is a district city in south-east Yunnan, and together with Man-hao, a village on the left bank of the Red River, was opened to trade by the Additional Convention to the French Treaty of Tientsin of the 25th April, 1886, signed at Peking on the 26th June, 1887. The town is two days' journey from Man-hao and about six days' from the frontier of Tonkin at Laokay, and beautifully situated, being built on a cultivated plateau twenty miles long by about twelve miles in breadth, encircled by picturesque mountains, and is 4,280 feet above the level of the sea. It has a population of about 3,500 persons, but was a place of much more importance before the Mahommedan rebellion, as the numerous well-built temples, many of them now in ruins, still testify. It is, however, a considerable commercial emporium even now, and is becoming an important centre for the distribution of foreign goods imported via Tonkin. French Consul hoisted his flag at Mengtsz on the 30th April, 1889, and the Customs station was opened in the following August. The value of the trade coming under the cognisance of the Foreign Customs for 1907 was Tls. 12,860,893; in 1906 it was Tls. 10,825,000; Tls. 9,593,000 in 1905, and Tls. 10,747,000 in 1904. The Chinese merchants avail themselves largely of the advantages offered by the transit pass system. The value of goods sent into the interior under transit passes during the year 1907 was Tls. 3,324,449; in 1906 it amounted to Tls.3,761,000. The climate of Mengtsz is temperate and salubrious. Plague has been absent from Mèngtsz since 1899. During the winter good sport is obtained, snipe and wild fowl being abundant in the plains, and some pheasants and partridges in the hilly districts, but the presence of a large number of sportsmen of all kinds is making all game scarce.
A new French Consulate was finished in 1893, new dwelling-houses for members of the Customs service in 1894, and a new Custom-house in the spring of 1895. All these buildings are outside the East gate of the city. On the 22nd June, 1899, a riot occurred, in the course of which the Custom-house and French Consulate
were looted. The Compagnie Lyonnaise Indo-Chinoise in 1899 opened a branch to Mengtsz. Others have followed in their footsteps and four large commercial houses in Indo-China are now represented. A railway from Laokay to Yunnanfu via Mengtsz is under construction by a French Company, which had a capital of 4,000,000 francs for this purpose, but the ultimate cost of the line, which will have a length of 470 kilometres, will probably be at least a hundred millions. The section Laokay-Mengtsz was opened to on the 17th April, 1909. At the end of 1909 more than 400 kilometres of rails had been laid down, and it is expected that the whole line will be completed and opened to traffic in March, 1910. Mengtsz is now only 12 hours by rail from the Tonkin border and 22 hours from the coast. The British Consul has pointed out that not least of the benefits which the line should confer would be the provision of sanatoria for Indo-China, even, maybe, for Singapore, Bangkok and Hongkong. If for twenty years, he says,
the Chinese peasant could be checked in his ravages-there has been ruthless destraction of timber the lake region of Yunnan would become a terrestrial paradise. Several houses for the accommodation of the Railway Mission have been built at Mengtsz since 1900, and as a sequel to the immigration, rents, wages, and the cost of living for natives and foreigners alike have risen greatly. During the last four years the Chinese l'ost Office has pushed its way into the interior till now the south- east of Yunnan is covered with a network of lines and nearly every town has its
traffic
establishment.