The Savannah morning news., 1900-07-16
TEEN TSIN THE FILTHY,
Account of the PestiIcntial Town
Where the Boxers Are Massing.

From the London Mail.
1 had intended 10 spend only two days
in Tien Tsin, but before 1 had been five
hours in the place I was struck by an
illness which kept me at the Aston House
Hotel for fortnight and at the Tien-
Tsin Hotel for nearly six months.
Think of the filthiest European town
you have ever been in; multiply the dirt
and squalor Of 1t by ten; add to it the
smell of a charnai house, and people il
with the canaille of the slums of Paris.
and you have a picture of Ten Tsin at
its best. AS for the streets, they are
gloomy, narrow. irregular, indeed almost
distorted, for they turn and twist in all
directions, while overhead the second
stories of the houses are for the most
part decorated with signboards and flags
and streamers, each more grimy than its
neighbor.
In every street dozens of ill-favored and
greasy loafers stare sulkily at you you
pass. and out of most of the windows
during the afternoon hideous faces peer
stoidly from the gloom within.
Such is the town that the horde of~pil-
Laying and barbarous ruffians ycleped
Boxers" or "Highbinders," seem like
ly to make their headquarters-at any
rate for the present and place better
suited to their evil designs il would be
difficult 10 find.
Yet Tien Tsln and the neighboring ham,
lets and villages hold a fairly large Eu-
ropean population Tien Tsin itself has
its season. its race cub-managed by a
popular sportsman-its polo matches,
which are watched with languid interest
by many hundreds of Celestiaie; its pub
lie band, which plays regularly in the
Victoria Park during the season. its week
ly newspaper, the Pekin and Tien Tsin
Times, and its Gordon Hall for public
entertainments.
AT present this hall is said to be crowd
ed with refugees. though it will offer
but scant protection if any attempt be
made by the insurgents to force an en-
trance into ii. The whole of the native
population of Tien Tsin spend their lives
in idieness, and during the entire period
of my enforced visit l did not meet
a single white man, woman, or child
some of the missionaries alone excepted
who was not pining for 1.-THE day of re-
lease from Tien Tsn."
Even while l was there murders were
committed frequently, sometimes in the
daytime but oftener by night. Who COM
mitted these ASA ssinations nobody SEEM
ed to know, and certainly nobody cared
to try to find out.
In Tien Tsn the apathy of the sborig-
ines is extraordinary. Only the highest
officials take the least interest in public
affairs, or in the dongs of the world
outside their own city walls. and even
they would remain coma tose did they nor
receive grants from the Russian Secret
Service Fund-grants which amount in all
to very large sum yearly.
And yet, in spite of their secret socie-
ties, their barabarous practices. their in
human acts of cruelty upon occasions. the
Chinese of Pekin and Tien Tsin are in
some respects quite childish. 1t is by 70
means uncommon in Pekin, for instance,
to see Chinese soldiers amusing them
selves by practicing shooting with little
bows and arrows.
On one occasion, l remember it well,
some of these soldiers thought ii was the
hight of humor to paint on canvas a pic
ture of an enormous field piece. which pic
ture they then stretched over the town
wall. Hundreds of the natives at once
fiocked out to gaze at the ridiculous daub,
and even when they had seen II they re-
manned staring at it for hours on end
What is the idea?" l inquired of my in
terpreter.
"Hee! hee" he answered, sho wing all
his teeth, "he startee stranger" which
meant, discovered subsequently, that the
picture was intended TO strike terror into
the hearts of what are now called the
foreign devils"
Some days later l happened to be dis
cussing with a European resident in Tien
Tsin the subject of the great loan which
had then just been concluded. "Ah, yes
he remarked, quite seriously; 'it is fortu-
nate that the business was not through in
time. The Chinese kite-hyng season
opens next week, and when that is on you
can say good-by to all business. Our Chi
nese here get their heads so full Of kites
in the kite season that they can't think of
ANYTHING else at all"