Show L Written for this thil Paper MIGHTY PEKING Copyrighted Ck d by bV Frank G 0 Carpenter 1894 1891 j HE destruction destruction destruction tion tion of ot the Chinese s earmy army at Pin Pin- yang Pin yang in Cor- Cor Corea Corea ea Cor-ea ea and the crippling of x their fleet atthe atthe at the mouth of the Y a 1 0 0 T river indicates indicates indica- indica indicates iii 4 tes that the Japanese threat t that hat h a t they ey tb y will march their soldiers into I Peking before winter is by no means an Mite idle one The river is is the the bound bound bound- boundary ary ry between Corea and China China and as it itis is Is now the Japanese practically control the thc country The territory of North is very poor and the Chinese will h re to bring their of food with them if they attempt another invasion The Japanese will not need a large army to t keep them out and they can now t their forces upon China Peking f its byno by no means hard to reach The between it and the sea is as flat flatus group as a floor floor and if the Japanese can be landed on the east coast of the Gulf of oft they will be within a few days march of the great a Chinese capital The only thi thing g that thata that pre prevents vents t them em from fromI I getting getting near it by water IS is the big forts atthe atthe at the mouth of the river These are ina manned ned with Krupp and Armstrong ns and Li Hang Chang's Chang army JS is hind them Wherever they land they they will have to fight what remains of ofF F this arm army but a victory would mean the capture of of Peking and the practical sub 4 fag tion of China Peking is perhaps one of the least known cities of the world I have paid two visits to it and spent a month in jt it six years ago During the present spring I pring I prowled about its streets for days and devoted myself to making a Study study of the town and its people It is isan isan an immense city It contains about teen fifteen hundred thousand but th these se are scattered over an area atea of ot twenty-five twenty square miles and the people as a arile rule rile live in story one-story houses The city is surrounded by walls which were built hundreds of ol years a ago o and which of dol dollars dollars must have cost many millions lars These walls are in good condi condi- condition condition tion tion on with the exception of one or two P planes where wb re the goods floods ds of last winter r J them and carried part of their facings away It is hard to give an American an idea of one of these walled cities of China The walls of Peking are sixty feet thick at the bot bot- bottom bottom bottom tom They will will fill the average coun coun- country country country try road or city street and they are as astall astall astall tall as a story four house They are so wide at the top that you could run three railroad trains trams side by side around them and they are so solid that the cars would move more smoothly over these tracks than they do on the trunk lines between N New ew York and Chicago These walls are faced inside and out with bricks each as bi big as a four dollar four Bible and the space between between is filled with earth and stones so rammed down that the ages have made the whole one solid mass They are built in fact much like the great wall of China and the bricks of the two are almost exactly the same I have before me the brick which I brought from the great wall It weighs about twenty pounds or as much muchas as a year two baby It is gray gray blue in color and is covered with patches of white lime mortar just like those that I saw in the broken places of the walls waits at Peking In approaching Peking long lon before you get to the city you see the Immense to towers ers which stand on the top of this wall over the gates which enter the city These towers are as tallas tall as a big New NewYork NewYork NewYork York flat They rise nin nine stories above n ni i t tr r- r rr r i-i i the wall and they tey have roofs of blue tiles They were used in in the past as watch towers and the they have many port portholes portholes portholes holes for cannons There There are thirteen gates which lead into the city and the towers and walls near these are plas plas- plastered plastered plastered over with proclamations and aid bills much like a theater bill board The gates of Peking are merely holes through the walls and they are about as wide as the he ordinary ry street and per per- haps perhaps twenty feet high They are lined with stone stone And are beautifully arched They are ate closed at nigh with great great doors sheathed with iron and they are paved with heavy slabs of stones The walls of Peking are twenty-seven twenty miles long and the area which they enclose is ir- ir irregular irregular ir irregular regular in shape and it consists of two big parallelograms The one at the north is the real capital of China for it contains the Tartar city the great gov gov- government government government departments the foreign lega lega- legations legations legations and the imperial city in which surrounded by five or ten thousand eunuchs the emperor lives The lower parallelograms joins the Tartar city It has half a dozen temples including the Temple of Heaven which was burned down not long ago and which is now being rebuilt ot of Oregon pine The Chinese city is where all II the mer mer- cantile business of this great capital is done It is cut up into narrow streets and it is filled with all sorts of s stores It has markets of all kinds and its fur market covers several acres It ha has its wholesale as well as its retail fur market and I have gone out at 6 o'clock in the morning and fou found f r d perhaps a thousand eyed almond-eyed merchants dressed in gor gor- gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous silks moving about through great beds of furs of all kinds The furs are piled upon the ground and you can sables for about 3 a skin and tiger for 75 which will be worth twice e that amount anywhere else In the would wot-Id You can buy the finest of ermine and for 10 io you can get a coat of lambs lamb's wool of the kind that our ladies use for forlong forlong forlong long opera cloaks This Chinese city is Isa isa a city of banks and of stock exchanges visited I one morning the silver ex- ex exchange ex exchange x- x change It was a room like a barn and acid the people were buying and selling stocks just as they do on Wall street yelling and howling and pushing ea each h hother other like mad as they did so It is a city of book stores and there are some streets which contain no other shops We have the idea that the Chinese merely live upon rice and on rats and that their chief industries are the making of matting of fans and of silks The truth is that China does a vast business and she produces all sorts of commodities commodities i ties Nearly every one of these Chinese streets contains shops of all kinds and the main business of China is not the supplying goods for the foreign markets but the making of those required for or h her own people They have as many wantS as we have and they require as good goods The nobles dress in the finest nest ot of silk and there are hundreds of stores which sell nothing but pictures Theart Theart The art displayed in most of the the paintings is abominable but they are pictures never never- nevertheless nevertheless nevertheless and the Chinese pay good goodmoney goodmoney goodmoney money for them I wish I could show you the markets of Peking You can get as good meat there as you can in New York and there is no finer mutton in 10 the world than that of North China The sheep are of tailed the tailed fat variety and I saw many which had tails weighing over a pound It is queer how they kill the animals which thep sell The They have no slaughter slaughterhouses slaughterhouses slaughterhouses houses anda and a sheep is often butchered in front of the shop and the blood lies lieson lieson lieson on the ground while you buy There are all sorts of fish an and Iou they are always sold alive No Chinaman would buy a dead fish and in case you want to buy less than a whole fish at a time the Chinese peddler will pull the fish out of the water lay him squirming on the block and cut a piece of quivering flesh out of his side for you while you yon wai wait t He does not kill the fish and after you are through he be throws it back into a separate pail of water and waits for another customer to take off the rest One of the chief meats sold is pork and you see hogs trotting about t rou h the streets of Peking They wallow in 10 inthe inthe the puddles right under the shadow of the emperors emperor's palaces and they are the dirtiest hogs in in the world There are all sorts of game for sale in the markets and you can get snipe and quail and squirrels of all kinds The Chinese are the best raisers of poultry in the world They have duck farms and goose farms and they know all about artificial incubation incubation incubation bation They sell great quantities of dried geese and dried ducks and they carry bushel bushel- bushel baskets baskets full of dried ducks I about the city for sale They sell all alI kinds of fruit and they are adepts in the raising of the choicest of vegetables They bury their grape vines in the north I jn in m the winter and you can buy your nuts by the bushel ushel As to cats dogs and rats I did not see any sold in Pek Pek- Peking Peking Peking ing and I dont don't believe that the better classes are accustomed to use them I Iam Iam Iam am told however that such cats as are sold in the south are raised and fattened especially for the market and that their diet is usually rice Dogs flesh is sup sup- supposed supposed supposed posed by the people to give heroic properties to those who feed on it and the same effect is produced by bears meat and the up ground-up bones of wild ti tigers ers These things ought to bring a high price price just now in in Peking for the people certainly have reason to increase their courage Another queer article that you you ou see in the Peking market is false hair hair I passed several places aces where queued queued long stood beside a aboard aboard aboard board upon which were hung long bunches of black Chinese locks Each of these was a false pigtail and it is said that one of the chief articles of ex- ex export ex export port ort from Corea to China is human hair The The Chinese braid extra locks into their queues queues and they often patch out their queues with silk thread I might write a fu full letter about the the queer things shown in the Chinese part of the city of Peking I could tell you of o f a vast business done in gold and silver ver paper which the Chinese burn at atthe atthe th the e graves to furnish their dead with money oney to pay their passage to heaven I could show you shops selling nothing but coffins in which single articles ot of this kind cost as high as four thousand dollars and where the dutiful son often buys his father a coffin and makes it a present to the old man years before his death leath I could tell you of stores where thousands of dollars worth of incense or joss sticks are sold every month and andI andI I could take you into establishments which sell nothing but birds and gold goldfishes goldfishes goldfishes fishes There are big stores full of furniture and shops which make nothing but porcelain stoves There are places where wood is sold in bundles by weight and establishments where coal dust is mixed up with mud and sold in in lumps the size and shape of a base ball at so much apiece There are great markets for the selling of chickens and flowers and all sorts of toy stores and stores for forthe forthe forthe the selling of paper and cloth There are lock peddlers by hundreds and hardware establishments and if you are very hard up and in want of a meal I Ican Ican Ican can show you a little hole round the corner comer where you can get camels camel's meat soup and mule roast at low prices There are places for gambling and dime I museum shows There are restaurants of every description and opium joints without number There are in in fact I stores stoles of every sort and description and the best things in in China come to Peking The most interesting part of Pekin Peking however is the big Tartar city It is is the capital of third one of the population population tion on the globe and in it lives the son of heaven the Emperor of China to whom all his subjects must bend their knees It contains the thousands ot of Manchu officials the foreign legations the government departments and all the paraphernalia of this queer Chinese court It is the most interesting city on the face of ot the globe and its sights really beggar description From the walls the whole city looks like an im- im immense immense immense mense orchard with here and there story story one buildings shining out through the trees In its center there is a walled off enclosure filled with massive build build- buildings buildings buildings ings roofed with yellow tiles This is the Imperial city in the innermost parts of which is a brick pen inclosing several square miles where the emperor lives surrounded by eunuchs He is perhaps the rarest bird in the whole Chinese aviary and I will follow this with a special letter describing some of his antics He is kept apart from Chinese and foreigners and you might live in Peking fifty years an and Iou not see him He really knows nothing about his people or his surroundings and he is a sort ot of ota ofa ola a puppet who stands still or dances when his highest officials or the old empress dowager pulls at the string No better idea of the condition of the government of China could be gotten than by a trip through this Tartar city It is one of the oldest towns in the world It was founded more than a thousand years before Christ and it has been the capital of millions for ages It ought to be the greatest city on the face of the globe but there is no spot more filthy and slimy and foul The city knows nothing of ot modern improve improve- improvements improvements improvements ments It is cut up into wide streets but the roads have no sidewalks and the rude Chinese carts sink up to their hubs as they move through the city There are no water closets The streets are the sewers and the most degraded savage of our western plains has a greater regard for the exposure of his person than have these tailed pig-tailed silk silk- silk dressed dressed gaudy fat Pekin Pekingese Pekinese ese The city has absolutely no sanitary Improvements and the street lamps are framework boxes backed with white paper and they are seldom lighted except during full moon It is is absolutely unsafe to move about in the time night-time without a lantern if you wish to keep your feet clean and you have to balance yourself in the day to ke keep p out of the mud All of the tile houses are of one story and the government departments look more like down I broken do down broken n barns than the offices of a great empire I went one morning to visit the state department and as I looked at it I thought of our great building of the State War and Navy which cost you know more than ten million dollars and which is the biggest granite building in inthe inthe inthe the world The street was a mud puddle and I hugged low build build- buildings buildings ings till I finally came to a gate at which a dirty official was standing He shook his head as I entered but I pretended not to see him pushed my way in inI I entered a court which looked for aU the world like a barn yard surrounded by low wooden stables with heavy tiled roofs This court was filled with don don- donkeys donkeys donkeys keys horses and dogs and naked half-naked j children s sprawled in front of the doors to these buildings which were int act the offices of the department The buildings were filled with clerks who wrote who wrote away at bare tables the light coming in through latticework walls backed with white paper |