Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-03-30
Geographic News
Bulletins by the
National Geographic Society
ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT

COW she had told fellow passengers
on the trans-Siberian railway of an
Englishman who was disappointed
because he spent ten days in New
York and had not seen an Indian.
Just before alighting at the ter
minal city of the longest railroad in
the world she inquired, is there
much danger from wolves In Vlad-
ivostok?'
Not only is there about as much
danger of meeting a wolf in VladI-
Ivostok as. there would be of en-
countering a mountain lion in San
Francisco: but there are other like
nesses between these port cities, es-
pecially if the Vladivostok of just
before the war be compared with
the San Francisco of its earlier,
Barbary coast days." according to a
bulletin from the Washington, ID.
c., headquarters of the National
Geographic Society.
Compared to San Francisco
THE city of the Golden Horn is
| younger than our city OF the Golden
Gate, having been founded in 1850,
Had its normal development not
been interrupted by the war, its
hinterland beset by Soviet forces,
unsettled by rapid changes of gov
eminent and now reported to be left
without any because of the attack
ing Chita troops. V~iadivostok might
soon have rivaled our own coast
city in population and beauty.
Living is extremely dear said
the Baedeker in 1912; and of the
Vladivostok of 1922 it might be
said with equal truth hat human
life is very cheap. The city war;
ranted a Bret Harte's attention for
tic hi1orro md onlnrfrt1 otro nep n 70
during war times, but for the varie-
ty of peoples who made up its
transitory population it outdid any
earlier experiences of our own from
tier towns. Normally it has fewer
than $4,000 people; by 1918 it's resi-
| dents numbered nearly 0 $1,000. The
influx vas made up of human grad
atoms between typhus victims and
American millionaires. Huge piles
of a material were massed there
before the revolution came-acres oil
automobiles, mountains of cal
wheels, and square miles of barbed
wire.
Contrasts are Extreme
Even in ordinary times Vladivos.
tok is a city of extreme contrasts, as
might be expected of a place where
Chinaman and Russian compete
where east literally meets west
Alighting at the European-lookiny
station, from one of the most luxu~-
iOus trains of any continent (191S
was the last year you could have
done that you saw trailers, automo-
biles. droshkies, carriages, and jim
rikishas. Russians. Japanese, Chi.
nese and Koreans predominated
with many Europeans. occasional
Americans and Africans.
"A tongue of hilly land thrust ouI
into a land-locked bay constitutes
the site of The Mistress Of the East.
The architecture maintains the Eur,
opean note struck by the station
which makes the presence Of Orien'
tai people, ~conveyances and custom.
all the more exotic. You no sooner
accustomed yourself to the drear,
routine of bazar buying, fiourishins
lotteries, and Babel of tongues thai
you encountered the more familiar
telegraph office, motion picture the
atre, museum. club and university
You may dodge a European racint
car, under an American electri,
light. and run plump into a cooli,
burden bearer despite the warning
criessof a Russian policeman. TIL
Golden Horn restaurant was tn
rendezvous of bon vivants of tn
world.
Small wonder living was ex
tremely dear in the old days and i
an acute problem now, since the cit,
subsisted formerly on supplies from
China and Japan, Europe and eve,
America. Its growth seems due t
some inexplicable exception tho
proves the rule that a city, to sue
coed, should be Self-SuStaining, in
terchange products with the countr.
around it, be thrifty, cultivate civil
consciousness, be well governed, an,
possess some racial. cultural, or pa
triotic unity. 1t owed its commerc
to the fact that it was the mos
nearly ice-free port of Siberia, b
which virtue it became the terminu
of the trans-Siberian railway, and t
the military and naval establish
ments maintained by the govern
ment of the Tsar.
Now it's patron government ha
disappeared, its railway has bee,
cut into units by the national en-
titles along it's course, and Bolshev
ism looms as an economic as well a
: a passenger barrier along the far
: flung rail ribbon that once extende
some 1000 miles to Calais.
I'm the way of exports, in 1t
! palmiest days, it had nothing NOR
) important to give the world tina
sea-cabbage, trepang and a fungi
gathered from decayed wood for a
Of which China was it's principa
! customer. Trepang is the dried bod
of the holothurian, more commonl
known as the sea slug, more appeal
} ing to the curiosity than to the pal
ate of the occidental. For this snail
like creature car throw off, whe
frightened, it's vital organs-diges
tive, respiratory and reproductive
and replace them all within a fe,
weeks. Nature here seems to hol
that two can live more easily, If nc
more cheaply, than one. When til
sea slug becomes too hungry 70
comfort it divides in two parts an
each, developing rapidly into CON
plete units, goes on a search fo
food"