The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-12-22
CANTON UNDERCOES
 A GREAT CHANGE
Is No Longer Place to Go to
 Be Wicked
GAMBLING IS STOPPED
Dens of Vice Closed and Whole China Is Coming Into New Order of Things Since New Govern
 ment Has Started

Picking, China. December 1.- -(Special)- A common proverb in China was, IT you wish to be wicked go to Canton"
 One who knows the old Canton, w'th it's treasures of iniquity would be grean surprised today at the tremendeus change No longer do the four-story pal- aces or vice near the foreign settlement bring their seductive influence to pear on the youth of the oity-all are dark ara the streets are deserted. The lower bund fitted up in the latest style, thousand foot front of "red light" Is the military barracks.
 No longer do you find on three pr focr corners of the principal street cr0ssinss the blatant signs, Gambling Here There is not an open gambling den. nor a lottery in this city of over million and a half of people. Opium smoking, that curse worse than drink in western lands Is gone. never to return, it is asserted
 Not only have these three open sores Of the western world healed, but age lon, abuses due to ancient religion aud custom have been cut away to allow the new growth of truth to appear SlaV' cry has been abolished by law, and as sistance Is given to those who are ffeed to find means of livelihood. Four hi1n- dred girls are being educated in one school at the city's expense The plir@ singing girls are now being cared for and given an education in dust.ll work.
 And. finally, the nunneries have besb opened, the girls in them are allowed the choice of leaving or remaining, and the small girls purchased to be brought up as
 tod ,,.I ,rd hafn faa4 in government schools. Twelve of the lj Confucian temples in the city have ! ,en turned over to the control Of the eduea tional department to be used as schools, Thes- great reforms are but the result of the natural moral force of the Chin csc, combined with the enlightenment Of the west. once freed from the long crushing thralldom Of the Manchus, the Chinese have leaped tc the front Iank of moral reform. It is true that opium and gambling in Canton were prohibited ue- fore the revolution came the latter only H few months before but they were the results of agitation through those at tempting to get at tue root of the matter under the inertia of the Manchu govern ment and who were successful. Tho Manchus thought to throw them off the trail by permitting lesser reforms.
 It is noteworthy that within three months after the new Cantonese govern. ment was formed and the present corps of officials was well established, this city, once the worst of the marts of China, has become model city.
 To trace the history of these rex ou- tionary changes We must look along three lines. The Chinese have a 'deep-rooted sense of the right thing. Confucius taugh, an upright moral code, and every teachel throughout the land has literally beater 1t into the minds or the student class Such training often leads to the refusa of the teaching, but nevertheless the rec ognition of it's value is implanted d2er fin the race fiber
 Second: The Influence of students 70 turning from abroad. and of foi elgil schools in China. A Chinese youth study ing in America or England may not ap- pear there to be enthused with the won der of civilization and machinery around him. But when he returns to his own country and sees the contrast, one of two things happen: total disgust of his conn- try and the resultant loss of his newly born patriotism in the desire for gain, cr he throws himself heart and soul ln.o what place he sees needs him. Most oi the off cials are of this latter class. or of those who have been educated in for elgn schools in China
 The foreign schools in China are cen ters of the new life The observer is struck not only with the conservation ol