An Australian in China Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burmaby George Ernest Morrison
M. Boell, who left the Secretaryship of the French Legation in Peking to become the special correspondent of Le Temps, was here in 1892 on his way from Kweiyang, in Kweichow, to Tonquin, and a few months later Captain d'Amade, the Military Secretary of the French Legation, completed a similar journey from Chungking. In May, 1892, the Commissioner from the French Government opium farm in Hanoi, M. Tomm, arrived in Yunnan City from Mungtze, sent by his Government in search of improved methods of poppy cultivationthe Yunnan opium, with the exception of the Shansi opium, being probably the finest in China. Finally, in May, 1893, Lenz, the American bicyclist, to the profound amazement of the populace, rode on his "living wheel" to the Yesu-tang. This was the most remarkable journey of all. Lenz practically walked across China, surmounting hardships and dangers that few men would venture to face. I often heard of him. He stayed at the mission stations. All the missionaries praise his courage
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But one missionary lamented to me that Lenz did not possess that close acquaintance with the Bible which was to be expected of a man of his hardihood. It seems that at family prayers at this good missionary's, the chapter for reading was given out when poor Lenz was discovered feverishly seeking the Epistle to the Galatians in the Old Testament. When his mistake was gently pointed out to him he was not discouraged, far from it; it was the missionary who was dismayed to hear that in the United States this particular Epistle is always reckoned a
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I paid an early visit of courtesy to my nominal host, Li Pi Chang, the Chinese manager of the Telegraphs. He received me in his private office, gave me the best seat on the left, and handed me tea with his own fat hands. A mandarin whose rank is above that of an expectant Taotai, Li is to be the next Taotai of Mungtze, where, from an official salary of 400 taels per annum, he hopes to save from 10,000 to 20,000 taels per annum.
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"Squeezing," as this method of enrichment is termed, is, you see, not confined to America. Few arts, indeed, seem to be more widely distributed than the art of squeezing. "Dives, the tax-dodger," is as common in China as he is in the United States. Compare, however, any city in China, in the midst of the most ancient civilisation in the world, with a city like Chicago, which claims to have reached the highest development of modern civilisation, and it would be difficult to assert that the condition of public morals in the heathen city was even comparable with the corruption and sin of the American city, a city "nominally Christian, which is studded with churches and littered with Bibles," but still a city "where perjury is a protected industry." No community is more ardent in its evangelisation of the "perishing Chinese" than Chicago, but where in all China is there "such a supreme embodiment of fraud, falsehood, and injustice," as prevails in Chicago? An alderman in Chicago, Mr. Stead
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