Directory_and_Chronicle_1896 — Page 509

Directories & Chronicles 香港指南 All

TIENTSIN

stacks of salt which line the east bank of the river are a striking feature. The salt is produced on the coast near Taku.

Foreigners live for the most part in the Concessions, British and French. The British Concession possesses a handsome Town Hall completed in 1889, and a small recreation ground called Victoria Park.

Tientsin will always be famous for the Treaty signed by Lord Elgin in a temple ince 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. Tientsin is connected with Taku by railway. The Chinese population is estimated at 950,000.

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 1894, 500,560 piculs were exported by this route, compared with 446,707 piculs in 1893. A trade in Coal from the Kaiping mines has sprung up, the export for 1894 being 104,252 tons against 81,840 tons in 1893. Opium to the extent of 1,462 piculs was imported in 1894 against 1,616 piculs in 1893. The total value of the trade of the port in 1894 was Tls. 44,277,050 as compared with Tls. 38,570,147 in 1893.

Directory_and_Chronicle_1896 — Page 509

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