Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-01-09
NEW WAYS IN CHINA.
Even the Dowager Empress Rides
About in an Automobile Nowadays.

GVCA euc 0oWdScI EIup1cSS 1slucS
About in an Automobile Nowadays.
From the Chicago Tribune.
The Boxers did the metropolis of Chill a
good turn in 1900. when they beseged the
foreign settlement, declared war on all the
world, and brought down upon 1t the armies
of eight great powers.
The presence Of 100000 foreign troops,
with all their surprising activities and meth
DDS, walked up Tientsin and sent it spinning
in the path of progress Local government
by foreigners had free sweep in any mu-
nicipal reforms or public works. and with
the old native city laid fiat and it's walls de-
stroyed. there was every chance to cut,
widen and Jay out roads they were need
ed, to enlarge the French concession, make
Japanese, a German and Russian conces-
sion, and extend the model British settle
ment, 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 direction over the
mud plain and Tientsin as it was before the
war bears no resemblance to this busy,
huStling, modern city.
The fervor of progress and prosperity is as
great within the Chinese city ALSO and the
viceroy, Yuan Shih kai. has kept the pace
set him by the international 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 subsidized. The viceroy has built a
broad, macada mixed boulevard from the
native city 10 railway station of it's own
that wrinkles with electric 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 pararrel the Tartar city wall. and
the station is beside the water gate through
which General Gaselee and the British
troops passed that August day to relieve the
bes.eged legations. Jinrikishas meet the ar
irving trains aud whirl one past the walled
and balustraded canal to Legation street, a
hard, macadamized highway closed with
gates at either end.
The way is lined with tall foreign build
ings and brick walls, over which show the
gabled roofs of other two-storied foreign
constructions. AS well might one be any
where else but Pekin.
Only few gateways on this street remain
as they were before the siege and stretch
of the French compound wall bears yet the
marks where bullets and shells peppered 1T
through the midsummer months of 1900. The
old trees, the coffin shop, the medicine shop
with it's 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 Kaserne,"
the lofty English bank with its clock tower,
and the labyrinthine cellars and founda-
tions of the large hotel of the Compagnie
Wagons-Lits. One rubs his eyes in amaze
that three short years could effect SO COM
plete change, and each day convinces him
that the Pekinese themselves have changed
quite much as this small quarter of the
Tartar city.
With the great and the rude awakening
there has come, too, complete change of
face and heart. The typical and most popu-
lar officials no longer spit at the sight of
foreigner. his cart or his dwelling, as If
ejecting pernicious bacili, nor do they OPEN
ly long to have the skin of a foreigner tan
ned 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 automo-
bile In. the summer palace grounds, and
Prince Su, who has charge of municipal af-
fairs promises that the main streets of the
city shall be fit for automobile travel in one
year.