Directory_and_Chronicle_1906 — Page 705

TIENTSIN

621

reform. The foreign affairs of China were practically directed from Tientsin during the two decades 1874-94, and now continues under Viceroy Yuan Shi Kai.

The city will ever be infamous to Europeans from the massacre of the French Sisters of Mercy and other foreigners on June 21st, 1870, in which the most appalling brutality was exhibited; as usual the political agitators who instigated the riot got off.

The Roman Catholic Cathedral Church, which was destroyed on that occasion, has since been rebuilt, and the new building was consecrated in 1897, only to again fall a victim to Boxer fury in 1900. The building occupied a commanding site on the river bank. All the missions and many of the foreign hongs had agencies in the city prior to the débâcle of 1900.

The population is reputed to be 1,000,000, but there is no statistical evidence to justify such large figures. The area of the city is far less than that of the Portsmouth boroughs with their 180,000, and the houses without exception are one storied. The suburbs, however, are very extensive, and there is the usual vagueness as to where the town begins and ends. The city walls were quadrate and extended about 4,000 feet in the direction of each cardinal point; during the year 1901 they were entirely demolished and replaced by fine open boulevards under the orders of the foreign military Provisional Government. This body has further bunded the whole of the Hai Ho (Pei-ho) and effected other numberless urban improvements. The advent of foreigners has caused a great increase in the value of real estate all over Tientsin, and as new industries are introduced every year, the tendency is still upward.

Li Hung-chang authorised Mr. Tong Kin-seng to sink a coal shaft at Tong Sha (60 miles N.E. of Tientsin) in the seventies; this was done and proved the precursor of a railway, which has since been extended to Shanhaikwan for military purposes and from thence round the Gulf of Liau Tung to Kinchow; 1900 saw this line pushed on to Newchwang. In 1897 the line to Peking was opened, and proved such a success that the line had to be doubled in 1898-9. A side station for the Tientsin City was opened in 1904, and in 1905 the station was built of white sand tone bricks made at Huangsue by an Italian called Marzoti who has opened a brick factory on a large scale. From Feng-tai, about 7 miles from the capital, the trans-continental line to Hankow branches off. This line was completed last year and opened to traffic in November, 1905. In 1900 the violence of the Boxers was chiefly directed against the railways, all of which were more or less destroyed, but under British, French, and Russian military administration they have almost all been restored to their former efficiency. As usual, the railway has brought all sorts of foreseen and unforeseen contingencies with it. Farmers up near Shanhaikwan are supplying fruit and vegetables to Tientsin. An enormous trade in pea-nuts (with Canton) has been created. Coal has come extensively into Chinese household use; the foreign residents are developing a first-rate watering place at Pei-tai-ho on the Gulf of Pe-chi-li, and all the various industries of the city have been stimulated. Brick buildings are springing up in all directions and the depressing-looking adobe (mud) huts are diminishing.

Foreigners formerly lived in three concessions, British, French, and German, which fringed the river below the City and covered an area of less than 500 acres. The Japanese have taken up a concession in accordance with the terms of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, and have made excellent progress in the filling of land and laying out of new streets. They propose to build 350 houses in foreign style. During 1901 Russia, Belgium, Italy, and Austro-Hungary all appropriated large areas on the left bank of the Hai-ho as future Settlements, while the existing concessions have all extended their boundaries very considerably. These developments have thrown all present and future landing facilities for direct sea-going traflic into Foreign hands. Very extensive building operations are going on throughout the concessions, which have excellent roads, with police, oil and gas lamps, etc., etc. The British Municipality has a handsome Town Hall, completed in 1889; adjoining there is a well-kept public garden, opened in the year of Jubilee and styled Victoria Park. An excellent recreation ground of ten acres is also being developed, and three miles listant there is a capital race-course. There are many hotels, two clubs (Tientsin Club and Concordia, the latter chiefly German), two excellent libraries and three churches (Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Union).

Distilling is one of the largest local industries; it is chiefly from kowliang (sorghum) or millet. Although a spirit, it is called "wine," and is exported to the south in large quantities. The manufacture of coarse unrefined salt by the evaporation of sea water is also carried on near Taku; the produce is stacked along the river bank just below the native city and sometimes gives off very offensive smells, rendering life a