The Savannah morning news., 1904-01-26
NEW WAYS IN CHINA.
Even the DOwager Empress Rides
About in an Automobile Nowadays.
From the Chicago Tribune.


About in an Automobile Nowadays.
From the Chicago Tribune.
The Boxers did the metropolis of
Chilli a good turn in 1900, when they
besieged the foreign settlement. de-
clared war on all the world, and
brought down upon it the armies of
eight great powers.
The presence of 100000 foreign
troops. with all their surprising activ-
titles and methods. walked up Tientsin
| and sent it spinning in the path of
progress. Local government by for
eigners had free sweep in any munich
pal reforms or public works. and with
| the old native city laid fiat and it's
walls DESTROYED. there was every
chance to cut, widen and lay out roads
| as they were needed. to enlarge the
French concession, make a japanese, a
| German and Russian concession, and
extend the model British settlement
which is the heart of the foreign city
! Business houses. dwellings, banks and
barracks have been built in every
| quarter. good roads lead in every di-
| rection over the mud plain, and Tien-
tsin as it was before the war bears
| no resemblance to this busy, hustling,
modern city.
The fervor of progress and prosper
| itY is as great within the Chinese city
| also, and the viceroy. Yuan Shih Kai,
| has kept the pace set him by the in
| ternational body that ruled Tientsin
| in modern western fashion during the
| foreign occupation. The object lesson
| was not lost and the foreign impetus
| has not yet subsided. The viceroy has
| built a broad. macadamiZed boulevard
| from the native city to a railway sta
tion of it's own that wrinkles with cleo
| trio lights at night; there are iron
| bridges across the river in place OF
| the old pontoons. and the whole place
| huns with such progress as was never
| dreamed Of in China.
The city gates of Pekin swing open
! day and night; further breaches in the
| wall have been made to permit the
| railroad tracks to parallel the Tartar
city wall. and the station is beside the
water gate through which Gen. Case
lee and the British troops passed that
| August day to relieve the peslegeu
legations. .Tinrikishas meet the arriv-
ing trains and whirl one past the wall
ed and balustraded canal to Legation
| street, a hard, macadamized highway
closed with gates at either end.
The way is lined with tall foreign
| buildings and brick walls, over which
show the garbled roofs of other two
storied foreign constructions. AS Well
might one be anywhere else but Pekln.
Only a few gateways on this streel
| remain as they were before the siege,
and a stretch of the French compound
wall bears yet the marks where bullets
and shells peppered it through the mid
summer months of 1900. The old trees,
the coffin shop, the medicine shop with
its gilded "beckoning boards"-in fact
all the old Chinese landmarks are gone
from Legation street. In place are the
long barrack walls of the "Waldersee
Kasserne," the lofty English bank with
its clock tower, and the labyrinthine
cellars and foundations of the large ho-
tel of the Compagnie Wagons-Lits. One
rubs his eyes in amaze that three short
years could effect so complete change,
and each day cOnVinces him that the
Pekinese themselves have changed
quite as much as this small quarter of
the Tartar city.
With the great and the rude awaken
ing there has come, too, a complete
| change of face and heart. The typical
and most popular officials no longer
spit at the sight of foreigner, his cart
or his dwelling, as if ejecting pernici-
Gus bacili, nor do they openly long to
have the skin of a foreigner tanned
for the cover of a cart. Six princes
drive in foreign built broughams, and
more than sixty foreign carriages will
be in use by official personages this
winter.
The Empress Dowager enjoys her au-
tomobiles in the summer palace
grounds, and Prince Su, who has
charge of municipal affairs, promises
that the mainstreets of the city shall
be fit for automobile travel in one year.