Omaha daily bee., 1900-12-16
THERE ARE HUNDREDS wtEEI.BAR ARRows PUSHED BY MEN

general government, and in laws recently
issued as to foreign loans such bonding IL
prohibited. 1t may be that the new treaties
will change this, and If so China will be
profitable field for the public works pro-
moter and speculator. The municipalities
are now practically free from debt There
are cities here ranging from 100 600
to 100000 in population which do not owe
cent. They are without water works,
sewers, gas, electric lights or street cars.
They should be improved and bonded, so
you see the field for the financial mission
airy is large.
The same methods that are used in the
United States for getting concessions and
working the municipalities will avail here.
The influence of most of the officials a
for sale, and the man who expects to sue
ceed must spend on the lobby. He will be
wise II he handles most of the money him
self, for some of it is sure to stick to
every Chinese hand through which it
passes. Every official will expect his squeeze
AS an instance, take the concession of the
railroad from Chin Kiang to Tien Tsin, a
distance of 400 or 500 miles, which was
granted to Yung Wing Chinese capitalist
educated in Boston. Yung Wing agreed to
pay his influential hackers 5000, 600 at the
start and to give the government % per
cent of the gross profits after deducting
the running expenses He was to raise the
money for building the road and was to run
it and at the end of thirty years was to
give it to the government for nothing He
promised so much, in fact, that he was un-
able to place the property in the United
States as he had expected, and when the
officials demanded their 5000 900 he did not
h,xyn .,t,.A
l am told that it was only by the connivance
of the interpreter OF our legation in Pekin
that he got out of that city alive. l cite
idea of the value of their services in such
matters
Such corruption is found in the very high
est circles. Take Hu, who stands next to
Sheng as the chief railroad man of the en-
! pire. He was recently accused by the cen
sors of stealing 400, 900 taes (about $500,
OOO) out OF the 2,4OO 900 taels that the Pekin-
| Tien Tsin line was to cost. How he ex-
planned the deficiency | do not know, but
he still holds his position in the manage
ment of the imperial railways.
Chinn's First Locomotive.
Speaking of the Tien Tsn railroad | saw
in its car shops at Tong Shan the first loco
/
| China. This was twenty years ago, whor
it was dificult to get the Chinese to admi
steam power, and so the officials had to e
slowly. They built the road from the Kai
ping coal mines to the sea under the nam,
Of tramway and had small cars pushed
down the track and back again by coolies
who were paid about 8 cents a day 70
twelve hours work.
After a time they manufactured this 10
comotive and called it THE Rocket o
China" They did not dare to order
steam engine from abroad They sent Il
the United States for the wheels an
patched up the remainder out Of pieces o
scrap iron and machinery gathered from
different parts of the country. The boile
was from an old stationary engine, whcl
had been imported from Europe, and IN
cylinders were from another engine whcl
had Ions since been thrown away,
When first put on the track the locomo
tive created such sensation that the gov