Directory_and_Chronicle_1891 — Page 477

Directories & Chronicles 香港指南 All

TIENTSIN

Tientsin will always be famous for the Treaty signed by Lord Elgin in a temple since called the Treaty Temple, or Elgin's Joss-house, on the 26th June, 1858, and known as the Treaty of Tientsin. The port is also infamously notorious for the massacre of the French Sisters of Charity and other foreigners on the 21st June, 1870, by a Chinese mob, under circumstances of shocking brutality. The China Railway Company, which took over the Kaiping Coal Mining Company's line, has now extended railway communication to Tientsin by a line from Taku, about 80 miles altogether. The official inspection of the line by H.E. Li Hung-chang took place on the 9th October, 1888. The line may eventually be extended to Tungchow. Tientsin is also connected with Shanghai by telegraph, and in 1884 a line to Peking was opened. A Chinese daily paper, called the Shih-pao, and an English weekly, entitled the Chinese Times, are published. There are no means of estimating the population of Tientsin with any degree of certainty, but it can hardly exceed 300,000 including all the suburbs.

There is a fair foreign trade done at Tientsin compared with the other open ports; but the exports are very small compared with the imports. The Tea exported goes principally to Russia and Siberia, via Kiachta. In 1889, 360,708 piculs were exported by this route, compared with 463,357 piculs in 1888. A trade in Coal from the Kaiping mines has sprung up, the export for 1889 being 51,959 tons against 38,042 tons in 1888. Opium to the extent of 1,528 piculs was imported in 1889, as compared with 1,555 piculs in 1888. The total value of the trade of the port in 1889 was Tls. 31,245,515, as compared with Tls. 27,959,017 in 1888.

Directory_and_Chronicle_1891 — Page 477

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