MENGTSZ
自蒙 Mung-t8z
The
This is a district city in south-east Yunnan, and together with Man-hao, a village on the left bank of the Red River, was opened to trade by the Additional Convention to the French Treaty of Tientsin of the 25th April, 1886, signed at Peking on the 26th June, 1887. The town is two days' journey from Man-hao and about six days' from the frontier of Tonkin at Laokay, and beautifully situated, being built on a cultivated plateau twenty miles long by about twelve miles in breadth, encircled by picturesque mountains, and is 4,280 feet above the level of the sea. It has a population of about 3,500 persons, but was a place of much more importance before the Mahommedan rebellion, as the numerous well-built temples, many of them now in ruins, still testify. It is, however, a considerable commercial emporium even now, and is becoming an important centre for the distribution of foreign goods imported via Tonkin. French Consul hoisted his flag at Mêngtsz on the 30th April, 1889, and the Customs station was opened in the following August. The value of the trade coming under the cognisance of the Foreign Customs for 1905 was Tls. 9,593,000 against Tls. 10,747,000 in 1904, and Tls. 6,435,000 in 1903. The Chinese merchants avail themselves largely of the alvantages offered by the transit pass system. The value of goods sent into the interior under transit passes during the year 1905 amounted to Tls. 3,466,000. The climate of Mêngtsz is temperate and salubrious. Plague, which claimed nearly 1,000 victims yearly in the first half of the last decade, has been absent from Mêngtsz since 1899. During the winter good sport is obtained, snipe and wild fowl being abundant in the plains, and some pheasants and partridges in the hilly districts, but the presence of a large number of sportsmen of all kinds is making all game scarce. A new French Consulate was finished in 1893, new dwelling-houses for members of the Customs service in 1894, and a new Custom-house in the spring of 1895. All these buildings are outside the East gate of the city. On the 22nd June, 1899, a riot occurred, in the course of which the Custom-house and French Consulate were looted. The Compagnie Lyonnaise Indo-Chinoise opened in 1899 a branch to Mêngtsz. A railway from Laokay to Yunnanfu via Mêngtsz is under construction by a French Company, which has a capital of 4,000,000 francs for this purpose. Surveys for the whole line have been made, and 30 kilometres are so far complete that a daily construction train leaves Laokay. Several houses for the accommodation of the Railway Mission have been built at Méngtsz since 1900, and as a sequel to the immigration, rents, wages, and the cost of living for natives and foreigners alike have risen greatly.
BLETON, A.
C. Bleton, signs per pro.
A. Bleton,
Dalban
J. Bleton
Fauvel
do.
Chabot
Vergniaud
Agency
Standard Oil Co. of New York
DIRECTORY
興安 An-Heing
COMPAGNIE LYONNAISE INDO-CHINOISE
A. Curti, agent
H. Gory
CONSULAT DE FRANCE
Acting Consul-- Réau
Interpr.-Chancelier --Crépin
Médecin du Consulat-Ayraud
Receveur des Postes--Rambaud
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