Directory_and_Chronicle_1925 — Page 696

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TIENTSIN

only, which impeded the general expansion of trade. It is impossible, however, that the future needs of the port can be indefinitely met by such means, and if this important trade centre is to maintain and improve its present influential position it is essential that facilities for ocean-going shipping be provided on modern lines.

Turning to the civil administration of the city, it is well known that during the long satrapy of Li the trade and importance of the city developed exceedingly. Li, by the vigour of his rule, soon quelled the rowdyism for which the Tientsinese were notorious throughout the empire, and, as he made the city his chief residence and the centre of his many experiments in military and naval education, it came to be regarded as the focus of the new learning and national reform. The foreign affairs of China were practically directed from Tientsin during the two decades 1874-94.

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, which was destroyed on that occasion, was rebuilt, and the new building was consecrated in 1897, only again to fall a victim to Boxer fury in 1909. 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 debacle of 1900.

The population is reputed to be close upon 2,000,000, but there is no reliable statistical evidence to justify those figures. 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 numberless other 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 King-seng to sink a coal shaft at Tong Shan (60 miles N.E. of Tientsin) in the 'seventies; this was done and proved the precur- sor of a railway, which was later extended to Shanhaikwan for military purposes, and from thence round the Gulf of Liautung 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 i City was opened in 1904, and in 1905 the station was built of white sandstone bricks? made at Huangsue by an Italian called Marzoli, who had 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 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 were afterwards all 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) lias 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.

The

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. Japanese took up a concession in accordance with the terms of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. They filled in land, laid out new streets and built a large number of 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 extended their boundaries very considerably. These developments have thrown all present and future landing facilities for direct sea-going traffic into foreign hands. The concessions have excellent and well-lighted roads, with an electric tramway system. 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 10 acres has been developed, in which tennis-courts, etc., have been laid out. The extra- mural area of the British Concession is very low-lying and is being reclaimed