Directory_and_Chronicle_1914 — Page 787

PEKING

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houses other than those of the immortal gods and the son of heaven. A railway line to Tientsin was opened in 1897.

The year 1900 was the most memorable year in the history of Peking from the fact that for the first time in the history of civilization during two thousand years a dastardly and deliberate attempt was made by a responsible government to violate the sanctitas legatorum. The Chinese have made characteristic efforts to escape the responsibility for this turpitude; but the formal complicity of the leading men in the Government and of the Empress Dowager with the Boxer sedition has been proved up to the hilt, and endless Imperial Edicts remain to show that the Government as such was heart and soul committed to the anti-foreign and anti-Christian aims of the Reactionary Party. Reference is made elsewhere to the progress of the Boxer agitation: enough to say here that the I-Ho-Chüan or Boxers arrived in force vid Pao-ting-fu on June 13th, and between that day and the 19th began their policy of plunder, destruction and murder. All the buildings outside of the Legation cordon in the Chinese and Manchu cities, including all the missionary premises and native preaching stations, as

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the residences of all who were known even suspected of being in any way connected with foreigners were destroyed. These people themselves were ruthlessly murderedl. The most interesting building thus to suffer was the well-known Nan-Tang or Southern Roman Catholic Cathedral, built more than two hundred years ago. In the attempt to destroy the small foreign drug-store belonging to Messrs. A. S. Watson & Company, Limited, of Hong- kong, the great Bazaar in which it is situated caught fire, notwithstanding the assurances of the chief Boxer that he, by occult influence, could prevent the fire from spreading. The destruction caused by this fire was inconceivably great: all the wealthy banks, silver shops, silk warehouses, and curiosity-shops, with their priceless and irreplaceable stocks of antique art, were consumed.

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Peking, though it suffered indescribably from the depredations of the Boxers, the Imperial troops, the awful ruftianism of Tung-fuh-shiang's barbarians from Kansu, to say nothing of the subsequent attentions of the Allied troops, is at present more attractive as an object of travel than before, for the simple reason that the City was cleansed by the foreign Powers, and that many places of antiquarian, artistic or historic interest are now accessible if the visitor sets about his object with due attention to national susceptibilities.

During 1902 the fortification of the Legation quarter was completed, the railwa termini brought to the Ch'ien Men in the Chinese City, and the reconstruction of th various legations was begun. These were slowly brought to completion, and extensiv barracks connected with each for the accommodation of the Legation Guards. A all Chinese buildings in this section were removed the Legation quarter present the appearance of a European settlement of about half a square mile in extent. In, o bordering upon this section, there are three good hotels, Hotel du Nord and Hotel de Pekin, and in the Legation quarters a large Hotel has been built by the General Hotel des Wagon Lits, Ltd.; it is just near the memorable Water Gate leading to the railway station. There are now several large stores, German, French, Italian or Chinese, which sell all kinds of foreign goods. The Club House is much larger and more con- venient than it was before; there is a Soldiers' Y.M.C.A., and a Catholic Church for the Legation Guards, and two hospitals-St. Michael's and the Methodist Episcopal John L. Hopkins Memorial), which are provided with accommodation for both Chinese and European patients. There are four Banks, Hongkong and Shanghai, Russo- Chinese, Yokohama Specie, and Deutch Asiatische, all of which do a flourishing business. The streets are being macadamized, and an Electric Light Company has been organized which will furnish light wherever wanted in the city. Telephones are also in use and Reuter has established a permanent agency in Peking.

The various Missions have been rebuilt. The bungalows have all been exchanged for two-storied houses, the arrangement of which has been greatly altered, giving to the mission compounds a much more attractive appearance. The church in the Methodist Mission, at the rear of the Hotel du Nord, will accommodate 1,500 people. In this Mission there are hospitals for both women and men, a Girls' High School in which there are 200 pupils, and about the same number of students in the Peking Uni- versity. These buildings are all lit with acetylene, and heated by steam or hot air, while the houses are furnished with water from an artesian well in the com- pound. In connection with the London Mission, near the Von Ketteler Monument, is the Lockhart Medical College, established for medical study in North China, an institution for the erection of which the Empress Dowager contributed Tls. 10,000. A little north of this is the American Board Mission in connection with which there is a

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