The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-07-20

BILE outrages upon the wretched sisters
of the religious orders. Unfortunately
those were the days of imperial forget
fitness, and but little was done to bring
the responsible authors and abettors of
the crime to account. 1t was about the
time when the foreign office is said to
have demonstrated with our minister in
China because no dispatch had been re-
ceived for six months on any single
subject. Write anything you like, but
write something" was the direction CIV
en-.
A waterstde population in China, as
elsewhere, embraces the toughest C ass
es Of the community, and the character
of the people is not improved by the
presence of the great army of Yamen
runners and parasites, the small fry Of
the official world, who hang on to the
viceregal Yamen Of Chilli, of which
Tien-Tsin is the seat of government.
The city is said, according to the rough
tests of calculatio which, serve for the
I Chinese census, to contain over mil
lion inhabitants. Packed and compress
ed into the stone boxes that serve for
houses, it is impossible for a stranger
to make any estimate of the number of
those who dwell in them, but as one
/ passes through the foul and narrow
streets and Shiny alleys they seem lit
orally to swarm and tester with coolies,
! beggars and parti-colored soldiers. Like
all other Chinese cities, Tien-Tsin has
its miles of encircllng walls, with the
inevitable four gates and the regular
+ succession of towers and baStions.
! Strongly built of mud, with facing
/ of gray stone, these walls may have
served their purpose against bows and
arrows In the days of chronic rebellion
and civil tumult, but they will prove
useless to resist the smallest gun of
modern armament.
The railway to Pelsln, although con-
structed according to Tnglish plans and
under English direction, belongs to the
Chinese, and is miserably managed, so
/ far as its finance goes, by Chinese Off
cials of the normal type, corrupt, wrong
headed and full of sef-importance. In
the trains which run to Pekin the only
carriage decently sweet or clean is that
of the imperial maritime customs, in
which Europeans are usually allowed
to travel. The railway station at Tien-
Tsin is not in the European settlement,
Dll lies oi tle IuIluet sue u Tie great
wooden pontoon bridge which separates
1t from the native quarters. In the at
tack made by the Boxers the other day
on the Russian force 1t seems that the
river formed the dividing line between
the two, and 1T must have been in the
attempt to cross the bridge that the
Chinese marauders lost so heavily The
European settlement is second to none
in China in the breadth and cleanliness
of its streets and in the solidity and
comfort of it's houses. Like all the 9TH
err ''Bunds," it is an Emporium in i'm
perio," with its own municipal arrange
ments and it's own part. In no part
of the empire is local government better
understood or administered than in
these so-called concessions of Chinese
territory. Each has it's own city coun-
ell, with officers and staff. regularly APP
pointed and adequately paid, on the ex-
act model of an English municipal Dor
ough of the first class. In fact, a town
clerk of Birmingham would find himself
perfectly at home in the town hall of
far away European China.
The severity of the climate, which
cuts off Tien-Tsn from the sea for four
months of the year, has made the mer-
chants put heavier weight of stone into
the construction of their houses here
than further south, and the general APP
pearance resembles nothing so much as
an important Scotch town, even in the
character of its architecture, which the
great Scotch firms who farm out the
far east have brought with them from
their native land. The police force is
20 Dat H..
"black devils" the Chinese call them
who look funny enough in the thick
blue clothing and white wooden gloves
of London bobby" but do their work
to perfection. 1t will be a shocking ca
tastrophe in the east, quite apart from
the horrid probability of massacre and
outrage, if the Boxers, or their protec-
tors, the Chinese soldiery, are able to
lay their hands on this admirable oasis
of western civilization, which strikes
the eye 50 curiously in the midst of the
decadent corruption of the Manchus.
Tien-Tsin trades in all the products of
the northern provinces and of Mongolia
and a prominent fea ture in the streets
of the Chinese city Is the fur and skin
shop, which supplies the natives with
every sort of coat, from costly sable,
sewn and put together from a hundred
scraps and pieces, to the humble sheep
skin for coolie wear.
The Tartar travels with his family
and his followers. Wives riding strad-
die legged and children in baskets are
mounted on camel back, and only the
actual leaders go afoot, with the long |
string of their charges following in sin
gle file. tied together in lire. Warmly !
clad in heavy wadded ilnderclothes, top
ped by enormous sheepskins, their !
heads covered with long cared fur caps, |
in addition to which they put on fur |
earbags, and on their legs "Mongol |
socks" that is, soft, high boots Of Sheep
skin, under felt overshoes, thickly stud
ded with iron nails, these people look
to the life the Tartar of the children's |
book of types. Beyond Kalgan the pla-
teau rises to an elevation of four thou
sand feet, and the icy blast that sweeps
across 1T cuts into the skin and pierces
through the stoutest cloth. The Tartar |
differs considerably from the Chinaman
or even from his knsman, the Manchu,
in the ruddy yellow of his face and the
pleasant frankness of his glance. He
seems to favor bright colors and on the
III t,1-E 4,