The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-10-23

William Archer in the London News.
 K o guide book that I have seen be-
 M gins to tell the truth about Pe- l king; probably because the cold truth would guide the intending traveller away from instead of toward that metrop- olis One reads of magnificent temples and pagodas, crowded with ancient and marvellous works of art, and one finds
 not to put too fine a poin tupon it-a rank and mouldering rubbish heap. The splendours-some of them. at any rate are there; but you are presently so exas- perated by the universal filth and neglect that you have no patience to look beneath the sordid surface.
 Let us glance at the Temple of Heaven, the chief show place of Picking. You bump in a rickisha over the infamous roads on the outskirts of the Chinese city, until, after crossing wide expansc of waste land. you arrive at a heavy and clumsy gate in long stretch of garden wall. Around the gate hang three or four gaunt half naked scarecrows, one Of whom (for a consideration unlocks a me- diaeval paddock, unbars the gate, and ad- mits you to the temple precinct. Perhaps you vaguely expect trim lawn, or a paved and gravelled courtyard, with How erina shrrubs-at any rate, something neat and seemly. If so, you little know vour China. What you find is a vast en- i closure given over to secular neglect, where a few untidy trees rise like islands above a billowy ocean of sturdy weeds. Into this wilderness you plunge, and by narrow winding track tnot to be called path) you reach another wall and gate guarded by another ragged squad or back cssheesh-hunters. Not to be tedious, may say at once that there are just l3 such gates to be passed by the pilgrim to the Temple of Heaven.
 The famous altar. when at last yo' each it, is circular platform surrounded by concentric balustrades of white mar ble and approached by converging flights of marble steps. It does not seem to me at best very beautiful: but what beauty it may possess is discounted by the fact that it is tumbling to pieces. Not far
 from the Temple of Heaven is the Temple of Agriculture, somewhat smaller in ex- tent. but a scene of similar neglect and desoIation At one point, indeed, you have to thread your way through Jungle
 of weeds from five to eight feet high
 and this, mark you, in Temple of Agri-
 culturei In one of the buildings are stored the gorgeous red and yellow ploughs with
 which the .Yimpra (so many guides
 called the Emperor and other magnates
 used once a year to plough certain fur
 rows within the precincts. The implements
 were thrown higgledy piggledy into the storeroom. and were encrusted in dust
 and mould.
 1 All this would have been interesting had
 it been a symptom of changed conditions, | like deeaying chateau in revolutionary France. But not bit of it The neglect and decay were not due to republican simplicity, and still less to republican ra- tionalisn. They were absolutely normal, and had evidently subsisted from time l immemorial.
 At the other end of Picking is Lama
 Temple, with monastery attached-a | going concern" of great antiquity and | l gatnereub OI some 6editH. IL coiiiaHie
 many curious and some beautiful things
 but all so mouldy. mildewed, musty. un- clean, and unwholesome that 1 had nc
 heart to look at them. But the culmi-
 mating horror of Peking was the adia- cent Temple of Confucius. It reminded
 me of the dreariest of Edgar Allen Poe's fantasies. After a single glance at its
 danks and dismal desolationsI shuddered
 and fled.
 One word-a brief one-as to the Chinese
 theatre A stern sense of duty took me | to six or eight of these institutions, in va. rious cities. In Shanghai the building;
 had been more or less Europeanized and
 sanitated. though the performances saw
 were still barbarous in the extreme II Peking. Tientsin, Canton, the disinfectins touch of Europe had not impaired tn
 primitive simplicity of Chinese habits, ant