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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND all these points; and as one of its leaders, | the affair at Peking. We have stated the the incapable and irreconcilable SHANG reason why the line has been an expensive KUNGPAO, is at the moment in high favour one, and SHENG has kat no opportunity of at Peking, it may readily be conceived that enlarging on this, and pretending that it is no stone is left unturned to hamper the to this that the failure of the line to pay new enterprise. We lately referred to the interest is due. As they have no means of suicidal step sanctioned by Peking of officially arriving at the real position of the inflicting on the line the curse of likin; receipts, the Syndicate is at à manifest the effects of this insane policy are already disadvantage. Meanwhile the line has being heavily felt. Notwithstanding the already commenced to deteriorate, the competition of the waterways alongside, the rolling stock is not kept up to the same superior facilities offered by the railway were standard as formerly; the third class carri- already beginning to attract goods traffic to ages are rapidly arriving at the normal state the line, and consequent on this the of all conveyances in China, the corridors of passenger record
was rapidly growing, the carriages are getting out-at-elbows, the Already the goods traffic is a thing of the platforms are, with the partial exception of past, no one daring in the face of the Soochow, all exposed to the weather, and uncertain, and unascertainable tariff, as the works commenced for these improve. well as of the unfriendliness of many of the ments have practically been stopped. local officials, to venture on sending their kiang, the most promising station on the goods; while it is evident that pressure of line, is open but is a long way from the city, some sort is being made use of to hinder and no attempts to make reads are being the passenger traffic. It is at least note-made, and the intended jetty a matter of worthy that the trains of passenger boats necessity for the development of the line is between Shanghai and the other towns postponed indefinitely. Worse than all this served by the railway, so far from falling the Chinese system of doing everything by off, as was naturally expected after the deputy has already taken
The opening of the line, are actually within the appointees to the various posts prefer to take 1st few months increasing both in number their salaries without doing the work, aud and size, while the railway receipts from sublet their tasks to substitutes at lower passenger traffic are, to all appearance, fal- wages, so that insubordination and rudeness ling off.
As the railway administration is gradually taking the place of the manage- under the influence of old Chinese officialment commenced by the Syndicate. No one, practices, refuses to publish the tables of in fact knows to whom he is responsible, receipts universal elsewhere throughout the world, it is, of course, impossible to speak from certain knowledge of these things, but there is little doubt that coincident with the enforcement of likin, and the presence of likin officials about the stations on the line, the traffic has been paralysed. It had bee. in coutemplation to form an extensive jetty at Chinkiang, and to establish a line of steamers across the River to the mouth of the Imperial Canal, only a few miles off. Under the new influence all these projects bave been countermanded. The opening of such facilities would undoubtedly attract for the line the greater part of the enormous traffic now passing down the Canal from T'eing Kiang Pu, but in view of the obstructions actually placed in the way of traffic, as a fact, there is practically no goods traffic whatever from Chinking, notwithstanding its commanding position opposite the Imperial Grain Canal.
Seen even from a Chinese point of view the folly of the present system is self-
and the directors find their employees have so many intermediate masters that supervi- sion is becoming impossible. This is already the condition, a few months after the final opening to Nanking; we may easily foresee what, under the rule of the reaction tries, the main line of China is likely to become when the system has got into full swing.
;
A curious instance of the sort of railway beloved of the Chinese Government is com- peting with the British syndicate for the construction of the proposed line to Ningpo. At the beginning of last year it may be remembered the Shanghai Thotai cut in regular form the first sod of a purely Chinese railway from Shanghai to Kiahing, an important city in the Chelikiang pro- vince, and which was to be a lesson to the foreigner as to what Young China could do. A few weeks ago its opening to Sungkiang, about twenty miles from Shanghai was announced. Before the first week was over it was already the scene of an accident, only prevented from being serious by the evident. The Central Government has fact that there were no passengers. The agreed to pay annually interest on the line is unballasted for the most part, that capital advanced by the syndicate for the being of course
a useless expense, the construction of the line, and naturally under train when it goes at all dare not proceed the circumstances has every interest in at a rate of over ten miles an hour, that advancing the prosperity of the line. This being the official limit; it possesses a single view of the case is as plain to a Chinese engine, an old fashioned American one, and officer as to the European financier, and it four cattle trucks and a goods waggoa by is absurd to attribute its action in any way way of passenger vehicles. Such are rail- to ignorance. It is certain, seeing the ways à la mode in modern China under the unprofitable nature of the line as at present management of SHENG KUNGFAO and his worked, that the Syndicate will not be reactionary friends; and this is the system disposed to abate in any manner its annual that has found western financiers willing to claims, so that in all probability Peking advance their money on without guarantee will have to find the differeuce due to its of any sort that the work is to be properly own folly. Of course following the usual constructed, or that the railway be not Chinese practice, uo accounts are published permitted to at once fall into ruin; in of traffic receipts, nor is there any means of addition to traffic being made impossible by arriving at statistics. The Syndicate of course the levy of likin and other taxes on mer- kept the construction accounts, and have re-chandise in transit, fixed according to the gularly rendered them; but there does not seem to exist any system of checking on be. half of the syndicate the accounts of the re- venue collected. That is accounted for only to the Chinese directorate, and is not subject to control by the English syndicate. Under the circumstances advantage has been taken by the reactionaries, conspicuous amongst whom is SHENG KUNGPAO, to misrepresent
[May 11, 1908. return to wiser councils, Railways are but an example, if such were needed, of the present misrule which is reviving the vitals of the land.
caprice of local officials who have paid in advance for their posts on the understand- ing that they shall be permitted to charge at discretion. We do not deny that the country at large is ready for reform, but unfortunately it is the Reactionary party who at present rule the land, and till China awake, or be awakened to the necessity of moving, there seems little hope for her
OF TROUSERS.
(Daily Press, 8th May.) In these days of newspaper and magazine advertisements, the Recording Angel men- tioned by STERNE-the one who enters up” all the lies and imprecations-must be very busy. It may be too much, even though scrip- - tural, to say that all men are liars; but it is no exaggeration to say that all advertise. ment writers are. They seem to think they have unlimited credit at the Bank of Credul ity, and are constantly drawing cheques on it. Some of these overdrafts are delightfully impudent. The man who wishes to per suade Carlyle's "mostly " compatriots that his pill is a panacea adopts and patrouizes philosophy, quotes the classics, and pats The huckster modern poetry on the back, who is about to trust an unusually glaring mendacity upon us brandishes his index finger and bids us remember that "facts are chiels that winna ding." The adver- tisement writer adopts the tactics of the early Methodist or Salvationist; he offers us only one alternative; we must line up with him or go to hell. We have a gleam of comfort while undergoing this persecu- tion. We are not obliged to read his essays, the publication of which costs him quite a pretty penny, and many of us do not. The pity of it is that so many do. One adver- tisement in a recently received English It magazine did what it was meant to do. caught our eye. It was a picture of t.o pairs of trousers, one pair wrinkled, the uther looking fresh
the tailor's goose, two straightly_creased and dang. ling elliptic tube. Beside the picture a big-lettered announcement to the effect that "the good appearance of your clothes
luxury but a
was
is not a
from
neces-
The
sity. The clothes proclaim the man." elliptic tubes, we should have thought, would more proclaim the tailors' dummy. From an aesthetic point of view, we admired more the wrinkled garment pictured. There is nothing artis ic or picturesque about straight lines, about parallel cylinders elliptical in cross-section, whereas curves and wrinkles are in themselves attractive
to the eye. The mischief of the trouser- man's bold assertion lies in the impression it may make on callow minds, confirming in such intellects the foolish tendency to waste time and thought on non-essentials— perhaps even to worry over them. Yet these are earnestly informed that the presence and uninterrupted continuity of the artificial longitudinal crease is not a luxury but a necessity, and that the absence of the creases and wrinkles that nature makes We know that is to be insisted on. with some people these considerations add to the cost, complexity, and trouble of exist ence, and as it is an irreligious age, it is our duty to warn them that such things are of no importance unless they chose to make them so. If a poor young man, worrying because of the bagginess at the knees of his nether garments, were to be als pious, he would not be long in discovering for himself the fact that the person who penned that advertisement was a brazen-faced perverter truth. For surely no sane of the person could take such a trouble to the of the Omniscient in prayer, Throne without suddenly realizing that the thing distressing him was a mure bogie built up "Hap- with the rags of his own mini? piness," says a recent writer, "has no tailor. It belongs to the soul, and a black