June 80, 1902] ·
ANTON.
[FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT, }
Canton, 21st June. TEMPLE FOR LI HUNG-CHANG.
After the death of Li Hung-chang there was an Imperial Decree sent out to all the pro- vinces in China that wherever the old states. man hal been or where he had done some meritorious services temples should be establi- shed in honour of his memory. At Canton accordingly the officials, and gentry have started a subscription and chosen à site near the Five: storied Pagods to build a temple, to be called Li Hung-chang's Temple.
EDUCATION.
To establish English colleges and schools in Canton it requires of course a large fund, and the Government being poor, the officials and gentry have resolved to raise money by subseription; the subscribers will get honorary titles according to the amount they subscribe. Twenty to thirty students left a few days ago for Japan to pursue their course of study with a view to taking up the post of teachers in the Canton schools in the future, and a site seventy cheung long by thirty cheung wide has been chosen at the foot of the Five-storied Pagoda for a big college..
THE RECLAMATION SCHEME. With reference to the Wong Sha reclamation, north east of Shameen, with regard to which Lo Sew Ping and other were petetioned against by the gentry of that locality for filling up the sea front to the extent of eighty cheung more than they are entitted to, I hear that the matter has taken another turn. The Director of the Canton and Hankow Railway, Sing Sun Wai, has offered to take the reclamation ground at Wong Sha for the use of the railway and to pay the licensees $80,000.
+
WATER-WORKS..
The water-works in Canton have been talked about for a long time to this day they have bot succeeded, either for want of capital or for want of a few really energetic persons to take them up. Last year a certain Ho presented a petition to the Viceroy and the Board of Reorganisation, offering to undertake the construction of water- works. He and his shareholders were ordered to pay forty or fifty thousand dollars into one of the native banks as security; but they did not do so and the matter remains in statu quo, I hear that some other enterprising men are forming a company to tender for the work.
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
491
member of the Roman Catholic missionary body | fleet as lay at the time at or near Port Ar is connected is reported to me. Although the might find it inconvenient to extend incident occurred a long while ago, it neverthe-operations outside the blockade that England less deserves to be given publicity now and would place over the Gulf of Pechill. For I can vonch for the bona-fides of my informant. nearly four years both Governments prò. It appears that out of a lot of silk piece goods ceeded along similar lines preparing to passed at the Native Custom House some time enforce friendship by fortifications: The hills ago, one package was stolen. A few days after around Port Arthur furnished scenes of mo the theft one Ying Ho offered a package of silk greater industry that those enacted on the piece goods to Chang Hang, silk-merchant for island of Linzung, which guards this harb ur. sale. The latter, having read in the local daily The town whose designation comprises the im- that u Mao had lost some silk, went to consult mediate territory was ready made, on the main him previous to buying the silk from Ying Ho. land, corresponding to the new town at Port- Hi Mao subsequently proceeded to Chung Arthur which the Russian authorities are con Hnng's shop, and indentifying there the silk as structing for all manner of civilian life, thus his lost property, reported the matt r to the emphasizing as strongly in one case as in the other the primary and essential purposes in acquiring the leaseholds, to compel peace. One may now roam at will with a camera over the heights of Liukung, and find nothing worth a shot. There had been forts on every eminence, needing only guns to complete them. New there are broken embankments. The dismantling process has removed gratings, ventilators, gateways, and all hardware and
Commissioner of Customs.
other contrivance which in aistrict of free
THE QUESTION OF COST.
Ying Ho was then arraigned, and as he could not gire satisfactory explanat ons as to where he obtained the silk from he was placed under arrest. Several friends of his tried to get him liberated but could not succeed. They then approached the Romanist priest Lo Sing Ho. who is also acting Consul for France here, and asked him to endeavour to get the prisoner eleased. The priest, who, one is inclined to think, did not know the particulars of the caseroaming might tempt the cupidity of native in question, wrote an official letter to the Cheng dealers in junk. Hai Shien, in whore yamên Ying Ho is incar cerated, and requested him to set the latter free, as he did not recollect from whom he bought the the value of the stolen silk, while Hu Mao was silk and moreover was prepared to pay $300 willing to accept the amount and so se tle the case. The Cheng Hai Shien forwarded the priest's communication to the Commissioner, who would not consent to the release of Ying He before knowing the actual thief or thieves of the sik. As Ying Ho, whose peculiar behaviour tends to throw great suspicion on himself, does not want to own up how he came in possession of the silk, he still lingers in prison.
The above, it will be observed, is purely a civil case which was properly tried by the parties concerned. One wonders then what justification a Romanist missionary has to interfere in a secular affair on behalf of a person who does not belong to his flock and whom he even does
not know.
1 have heard of two more cases of missionary intervention which I reserve for another
occasion.
WEIHAIWEI.
[FROM A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.]
It may never be possible to know how much the fortifications cost. An estimate would pro- bably be conservative which placed Chinese, Japanese, and English outlay on them at £251 0. Whatever part of that sum Eng- land may have spent is of course sheer waste. It had practical value at no time, considering that the forts were never mounted during Eng- lish military occupation. The outlay, large or small, may affect England not at all, but since time must count there as elsewhere, contrasts letween evidences of wasted labour on the heights and neglect in the barbour may well impt as the civil administration that has. zuw taken over the place to make a commercial port of it. Water- covers a configuration offshore which may be fairly judged by the land view, abounding in peaks and declivities. Close to land ocean liners might float, if they were only constructed
80 89 10 climb a ridge of hill that turps the outlying ses, when excited, into breakers. No one. yet knows whether or・ một the tinie, money, and labour thrown away on the forts would have removed this ridge, thus providing a harbour that would stand some sort of comparison with that of Hongkong, but from casual inspection one might suppose that the work might be accomplished in four years, at no greater outlay than that already rainly made, Piers might of course be built to the Until the world may be taken into the confid-ridge and get an outer foundation of undoubted ence of minis'erial councils in London, the reasons that actua'ed the order for the conver- sion of this port from a military and naval station into an aspirant for commercial prominence, will naturally be subjected to varied surmise, and no one may say by authority that one opinion is not as good as PROCLAMATION BỲ THE TAOT I.
another. The marvels of English accomplish- On account of the late robberies committed ment in the East justify a wide play of here and in view of the supineness shown by imagination as to what the magic of that the local officials, the Thotai has issued a pro- colonial touch may produce. It must be said, clamation to the following effect:- In however, that talk of establishing here another future 20 soldiers are to patrol the streets Hongkong sounds much more plausible at a nightly and particularly to guard the foreign distance than upon close view, for apart from Hongs. The patrol will be held responsible the consideration that this is property in lease for any misdeed perpetrated at night. If the hold rather than in fee the physical aspect, soldiers, however, are instrumental in appre-both afloat and ashore, is as far as possible hending any suspicions person, they will be duly rewarded and their names brought before the Viceroy Any person so arrested, and on trial being found guilty, will be decapitated." It will be seen by the above that the Taotai is on the qui vive and fully intends to keep this place free from law-breakers.
SWATOW.
[FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.]
Swatow, 21st June. NEW BRITIH CONSUL H. B. M. Consul Mr. W. Holland is leaving shortly for home on furlough and is succeeded by Mr. B. Twyman, who has already arrived from Canton.
Weihaiwei, 5th June,
THE CHANGE OF FLAN.
4
WAS
solidity, at the expense of contracting barbour space hardly too large for the small business that has beretofore come to it. Possibly by the time the port shall rival in business that of Hongkong, ships will be made of rubber, capable of compression with the discharge of cargo.
WHAT HAS BEEN GAINED. Military and naval occupation, served certain purposes admirably, Although peace now smiles upon this part of Chins, the most serene optimist will admit that there was always some comfort in the assurance that men, guns, ships, and supplies, under the English flag, ocoupled this lookout. If a chance remains of peril to foreign interests, at imperial instance, or con- nivance, or by any sort of racial or fanatic freak, in this region the preventive, or ourbing, or quelling influence would be applied. Now that the big policemen here, who did itle except patrol a quiet beat, has burned his uniform and gone into trade, it may appear that the mere badge of authority had its uses.
THE WEIHAIWEI BEGIMENT.
from promise of ready development. Lay observation may appreciate tolerably the merit of the place as a pisket and a shelter. It so appealed to the Chinese, who first fortified it. Japan thought it a sufficient menace to its fleet and troops to be worth capturing in the war between that country and China, Of the native regiment, recruited and and held it 83 a rendezvous on this stationed here, it may be said that the Englisk coast until the lease to England sent into the field two years ago no sturdier or signed at Pebing, in July, 1898. Common better behaved troops. One Chinese charac inference that England wished it because Port teristic of which less has been written than the Arthur had been leased to Russia had as a basis subject justifies is that of memory so strong by a clause in the English lease providing for the nature and so capacious as to provoke, suspicion new tenure so long as Port Arthur should that it must overflow from the head and find remain in the occupation of Russia. In this excess storage in the queue. The stranda of light the lease needed no farther explanation, clan woven all through the empire like network for if Weihaiwei may not be said to command perpetuate grievances of ancestors whose mar- Port Arthur, its location suggests the possib-row ceased to feed cabbage-fields centuries a lity that if England were to view with concern Their living descendants may not know or Gary ir of rather great interest with which a any performance of Russia, such of the Russian' whether the original quarrel was over a pig,
UNNECESSARY ANXIETY. The Swatow Daily News reported in its columns the other day z rumour that the foreign Arms Contemplated engaging Sikh watchmen to guard” their places, at night, owing to the bberies. The local paper considers step would ultimately lead to settlement here, and there- hinese authorities to take the et proper measures to protect
MISSIONARY: INTERFERENCE.