The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-10-13
GLAD ID LEAVE
 CHINESE CITIES Chinese Problem Is a Hard
 One to Solve "GILDED PIG STYES" Walls of Chinese Cities Are Wonders of Workmanship and Art. Canton Is Very Inter-
 esting Place
William Archer in the London Daily

William Archer in the London Daily
 News.
 T do desire we may be better strang-
 CTS" says Orlando to Jacques in "As
 You Like It.; and the phrase exactly ex- 1 presses my sentiment towards China. l I am now turning my back upon 1t, after having seen four of it's great cities, and
 my earnest desire--whicll the Fates are
 more than likely to gratify--is never to
 see 1t again. No doubt the very violence | of my dislike proves it to be one-sided and unjust; nor do for a moment pre-
 tend that it Is anything else. Many peo-
 pie who know China well do not dislike
 it at all, and find much to admire in the l Chinese character On the later point
 can form no judgment, and will only
 say that 1t is not the individual China l man, so far as I have come across him, l that I dislike. All I declare and main
 tain is that, whatever his moral excel | fences, he has a genius for squalid ugli-
 ness unsurpassed on this planet.
 | China represents itself to my vision as great blotch of fngrained and inveterate | filth and decay upon the fair face of the
 world. What Is to become of it? How Is | it to be cured ceansed sanitated, venti- lated, brought within the pale of civili- zation? Certainly not in virtue of the mere word republic" What it wants is | liberal exhibition of the fire hose and 1 the scrubbing brush; when these have
 done their work it will be time enough to
 talk about the ballot box.
 |
 One thing the Chinese certainly can
 do-lilxe Balbus they can build walls. Of l the Great Wall I had no more than a glimpse. at ShanhailSwan; but the walls
 of Picking. with their gigantic fortress gate-houses, are great enough, in all con science, and as impressive as size can
 make them. Compared with such stu pendous masses of masonry, the aque- ducts and amphitheatres of Rome sink
 into insgnifcanee in point of mere bulk; though in point of engineering greatness
 the advantage is all the other way.
 What now do these mighty walls en- close? A city laid out on magnificent
 scale, with the rectangular regularity of Chicago. and with splendid wide ave-
 nues which even Chicago might envy. | All the less excuse Is there, then, for
 the filth, squaor, neglect and decay that prevail on every hand.
 1 In a rash moment I called Tokio me-
 tropolis of novels, meaning thereby low
 pitched and fimsy dwellings. By the same standards. the only possible term
 for Pelxin would be a metropolis of pig
 stles And really that is no unjust de-
 scriptlon. The pigs are there in droves- actual four-footed pigs, l mean-of that
 shaggy. swag-bellied Chinese breed. which
 goes far to justify the Oriental prejudice I against pork. The mire Is there in seas and oceans; after 8 sudden rainstorm | had to ride a rickisha to ferry me across | a street quite close to the British lega- | ton, in which the water stood good 20 inches deep The sewers are not there; the paving is not there the lighting, the scavenging are not there--nothing Is there that makes for comfort, health, cleanli- ness, or decency.
 "Gilded Pig Styes" As for the houses, they are for the most part like sinister caverns with no front wall. door or window to shut them off from the mire of the streets. Of the
 dainty neatness of Japan there is never and nowhere the smallest trace. The Chinese cavern-front is lofty rather than Ilow-pitched and 1t has generally cor
 nice of coarsely carved heavily painted or gilded woodwork. There are streets in Pekin, both In the Chinese and Tar tar city, where almost every house Is more or less profusely gilded, the effect being exactly that of rouge on very | dirty face.
 And in and out of the gilded pig-styes there swarms a populace of incredible and | indescribable hideousness. Not hideous-
 ness of feature-that is not what I mean | but hideous of dress and undress. Even | the well dressed Chinaman, in summer garb, outdoes Father Noah and his fam | fly in stiff ungracefulness But well
 dressed Chinamen are rare. The mill 1 lions of Pel1in wear Gin July) either sole l ly and simply pair of bathing drawers. or else garments of such peculiar and soualid shapelessness that one cannot be- | lieve that. even when new tsay hun | dred years ago), they were ever designed I for human beings.
 | Children are (oddly enough) not very numerous. but grmier or raggeder little guttersnipes are nowhere to be seen, AS | for the women, in their black calico | jackets and trousers, they are certainly successful in surprising every possible l grace or charm of sex: and their feet,
 or rather their pitful little hooves, make l one sick to look at.
 Picking and Canton
 l Let me here say that. apart from the | lions of Picking. Canton is a ten times
 more interesting place. Here is no rect 1 angular planning and no wide avenues l The city Is a bewildering labyrinth of all | leys, none of them more than nine or ten | feet wide. and most of them so narrow /, that you have only to spread your arms l in order to touch the wall at both sides. i, Rickishas are as impossible motor cars | in yenice--the only European city which l in any way approaches Canton In the l narrowness of it's thoroughfares. You
 must either walk or be carried In the 1 slim sedan chairs swung on spring poles. | which are common. for other reasons, in | the neighboring Hong Kong as well. 1 Even in these chairs it is often matter l of the utmost difficulty to negotiate a
 corner In Canton but when two chairs meet 1t Is always possible to encroach
 a little on the frontless houses.
 l Most of the streets are roofed with
 bamboo mating. SO that the whole place
 is like gigantic cavern sub-divided into
 a million subsidiary vaults. By day the place is appalling, but by night. when
 the vaults are dimly lit, and 10000 naked
 brown bodies glisten in the Rembrandt
 esque illumination, the whole scene, with It's hideous vociferations and unspeak-
 able odors. approaches very near to ones l,~iI <I.ao nf hall fOr, fu