Directory_and_Chronicle_1939 — Page 709

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SOOCHOW

州蘇 Sú-chau

Soochow, until 1912 the capital of the province of Kiangsu, lies about 80 miles west by water and 54 by rail and a little north of Shanghai, with which it is connected by excellent inland water-ways. The Shanghai-Nanking Railway supplies still better connection. The city is a rectangle, its length from north to south being three and a half miles and its width from east to west two and a half, the total circumference being about 10 miles. It lies not far from the eastern shore of the great Taihu lake. Past its walls runs the southern section of the Grand Canal, which joins Hangchow to Chinkiang; and in every direction spread creeks or canals, affording easy communica- tion with the numerous towns in the surrounding country. It is an important manu- facturing centre, with a population of nearly 389,797 persons, of which number 225,843 were males and 163,954 females (according to the census taken by the Bureau of Public Safety in 1934). Its two chief manufactures are satins and silk embroideries of various kinds. In addi tion, it sends out silk goods, cotton, yarn, matches. scented tea, and articles in iron, ivorywood, horn, and glass, and rape seed.

Before the Taiping rebellion Soochow shared with Hangchow the reputation of being the finest city in China, but it was almost entirely destroyed by the rebels, who captured it on 25th May, 1860. Its recovery by Major (afterwards General) Gordon on 27th Nov., 1863, was the first effective blow to the rebellion. Since that disastrous period it has recovered itself greatly and is once more populous and flourishing, though it has not yet attained to its former pitch of prosperity. It was declared open to foreign trade on September 26, 1896, under the provisions of the Japanese Treaty. The Foreign Settlement is under the southern wall of the city, just across the Canal, and is a strip of land about 1 mile long and a quarter of a mile broad. The Government has made a good carriage road along the Canal bank extending the whole length of the settlement and as far as the railway station, a distance of five and a half miles. The care of roads has been entrusted to the Bureau of Construction of the Wushien Government, which, in recent years, continued to makea radical improvement in construction and widening of roads especially inside the city. The work on the widening of Park Road (A), commenced in September 1931, was completed in December of the same year. The Kong Hong (*) together with the adjacent Kan Chiang Fong (was widened in the early part of 1934 and the Chung Shih Chieh was widened in April 1935. Thus, the city now has, in addition to those roads already widened, about 15 miles of well- constructed roads. The two wooden bridges, namely, the Gordon Bridge (£ £ *) and the Chu Kung Bridge (A), on the road leading from the Custom House--at the outside south-east corner of the city-to the railway station were reconstructed with re-inforced concrete and opened to traffic in November and December 1931 respectively. The Nan Hsing Bridge () was reconstructed and opened to traffic in December, 1933, at a cost of $14,000.00. The old and broken Ching Kuan Bridge () at Heng Tang () was rebuilt in December, 1933, with funds wholly subscribed by a gentry of this district named Mr. Chang Tsing Yuan (), this bridge being re-named Tsing Yuan Bridge (#) 橋) after its constributor. It forms an important link of the Soo-mu Highway (**), the construction work of which was consummated in August 1935. It is much due to the credit of the Provincial authorities concerned that the work on the construction of the Soochow -Kashing or Soo-Kal Highway was constructed in May and opened to traffic on 28th June, 1933, covering a total length of 66.8 kilometres and at a cost of $700,000. Following the completion of the Soo-Kah Highway a motor bus service for run on this new road was inaugurated and operated solely by the Bureau of Construction of the Provincial Government, to the great convenience of the travelling public. The year 1935 witnessed the completion of the Shanghai Wusih Highway, covering a distance of 140 kilometres, with a branch line from Changshu to Soochow extending 40 kilometres in length. The road links up

Southern

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