The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1889-01-31
THE NATIONAL TRIBUNE WASHINGTON g. THURSDAY JANUARY 81 1889

WASHINGTON, D. O., THUR
inventions of Others and their initiative pow
ers, which are equaled by those of no other
race, will make them formidable competitors
in turning into material form the inventions of
American and European minds.
That such danger exists may be seen by
the strides that China has been making towards
the looking into of the Western methods. Not
long ago the Government sent Commission to
travel over Europe, and report upon such things
as in their view would be good for China to
know, and you will now find English-speaking
Cinnamon at every port of the Empire. The
Legations at Peking have Chinese interpreters
and each of the foreign Consuls has Chinaman
connected with him. There is at Peking a
college under the Chinese Government, which
teaches noble Chinese youth the Western
sciences and at the last examinations at Pc
king, where $4,000 students from all over the
Chinese Empire appeared and competed for
literary degrees-which here means also for
official preierment, for Office goes by scholar
ship-the students were given questions in
arithmetic, algebra, and the higher branches
OF our mathematics. Ii Hung Chang has now
an American tutor to give his children au
American education in addition to their Chi
nese one and the walls Of his university, where
hundreds of Chinese boys will be given a col
lege education like that our boys receive at
home are now up, and the institution will be
opened at no distant date. 1t will have for
egn tutors and professors, and l understand
there is a similar institution in the south of
China.
The mighty extent of the Chinese Empire
makes this movement all the more important
China Is so great that the giving of the mere
number of square miles composing it does not
convey proper idea of its size. 1t is with its
dependencies, about one-third larger than the
United States, and it has as many different
climates as we have. 1t has, it is said, about
one-tenth of the good farming land on the
globe, and it has nearly one-fourth of all the
people of the earth under its Government.
Think of that! For every man who speaks
English the world over taking Australia,
America, and the English colonies into con-
sideration, there are two men who speak Chi
nese For every three men who cut their hair
or wear it ragged there is one who shayes his
front and wears pig-tal. OF all the men,
women, and children in the world, if you mix
them up together, the Chinese boy and girl and
man and women rank to all the rest as one is
to three, and the race is such that it could
swallow up any other people and have room to
spare for good square meal off of two or three
other nations. 1t is all under one Government,
and it may be that the railroad and the tele-
graph will at some time so bind it together
that its despotic ruler can WELD it as one man
for good or evil in the work of the world. 1t
is indeed serious thought, and it is one which
the world will ponder upon sooner or later.
Tt is, however, possibility which is yet far
in the future. The backwardness of China is
patent to the most unobserving traveller.
Tientsin is not over so miles from the sea-
coast 1t is the great distributing point for the
great plain of North China, which contains
more people than the whole United States. 1t
is city of nearly million of people, and it is
from here that the supplies for the Capital of
the Empire, Peking, are sent. Chi Lii the
province in which it is located and of which it
forms the residence of the Governor contains
5000, 0o0 people, and is the center of the
trade for North China The trade of Mongolia
and Manchuria comes through Tientsin to be
shipped to the sea- and thence over the rest of
the world, and thousands of men are employed
here in handling the goods.
Until this year the only way of reaching
Tientsin was by the winding Peho River, and
this stream now forms the main highway. The
stream is a series of letter S's and when we
sailed up it the other day the turns were SO
sharp that we often stuck in the banks, and at
one time nearly crushed in a mud hut which
stood on the edge of one of the Chinese villages
upon its shares. We could not travel at night,
and it took us day in waiting for high
enough tide to allow our steamer, which drew
only II feet of water, TO get over the bar at the
mouth of the river. Still, number of steam
ers and junks by the score come up this river
daily, and a few millions of dollars would make
it navigable for large ships. There are, how
ever, no river-and- -harbor bills presented for
the Emperor Of China TO sign or veto. and the
natural philanthropy of the rich Cinnamon
does not work in that direction. Even if il
did, the money thus dedicated would probably
shrink from millions into thousands of dollars
before it ever got to the Peiho. The Board of
Public Works at Picking accepts all contribu-
tions, but uses them to suit itself Not long
ago one of the more progressive Chinamen
thinking that the streets OF Peking, which are
worse than the corduroy roads of a Southern
swamp, and which are so full of water in the
rainy season that sometimes people have been
drowned in them, decided to give several hun
dred thousands of dollars TO their improve
ment, and to thereby have a monument of
honor erected to him after his death as public
benefactor. He proposed his gift to the Board
of Public Works. They replied, g Your heart
is large, and heaven will reward you. We will
gladly accept your money. But there is really
no use in fixing these streets" The man was
then forced TO give his money, and the streets
remain to-day as bad as they have ever been.
This is one sample of Government improve
ment. The people dare not spend their money,
lest they will be thought wealthy and it will
be squeezed from them by the Government or
the officials. The Emperor has the right to
demand what he pleases of his subjects,
aud the officers are expected to live by squeez-
ing their salaries out of the people. Here at
Tientsn there is native customs officer whose
office is said to be worth S200 600 year. and
even the Judges get their salaries by making
criminals pay them to be let off or not prose-
cuted. 1t is impossible to know how this sys-
tenn has saturated the institutions of China,
and how it is practiced by the highest and the
lowest Ii Hung Chang, who is looked upon
as the most progressive man in China, is un-
doubtedly not averse to it, aud as an instance,
which, though petty, shows something of his
character, / cite the following which has ec-
cured while | have been here. The railroad
to the Kaiping mines has just been completed,
and the Honorable LII Hung Chang, as large
owner of stock and as the chief promoter took
a trip upon it to the mines. AS he rode out he
kept urging the engineer TO go faster and
| faster, and he was hardly satisfied with 81
miles an hour. He was pleased, however, with
the furniture of his car, which he was told had
been fitted up especially for him.
| "Ah!" replied he, "if this furniture was
! made for me I will take IL home with mo when