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The New York Times, December 24, 1877, p.3:
AN AMERICAN IN CHINA.CONTRASTS OF CHINA AND JAPAN.
THE COAST—WOOSUNG—TELEGRAPHIC TROUBLES—
SHANGHAI HOSPITALITY AND ITS DECLINE—
THE STATE OF TRADE—
OLD WAYS OF BUSINESS AND THE NEW WAYS—
HINTS FOR AMERICAN MERCHANTS—
TRADE BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND SHANGHAI.
Special Correspondence of the New-York Times.
SHANGHAI, China, Tuesday, Oct. 2, 1877.
China and Japan lie close to each other, and many persons in America are of opinion that the two countries are much alike. But it needs only a very brief visit to dispel such an impression, and if the traveler is in a hurry he can satisfy himself on the subject without going ashore in either country. The coast of Japan is almost invariable bold, abounding in sharp headlands and indented with bays that frequently open where least expected, and offer safe retreats from the storms that sweep over these waters. The coast of China, in the parts nearest to Japan, is low and flat, and you look in vain for abrupt cliffs and promontories.
Light boats and buoys are the principal guides to the pilots across the bar of the Yangtse River [Changjiang River, Yangtze River], as the low banks present few objects of any use as landmarks. The mouth of the river is of such great width that one cannot see across it from one side to the other, and the sounding-lead is an important factor in its navigation.
The distance from Nagasaki across the Yellow Sea is only 450 miles, and we wonder, as we traverse this now well-known route, that it has only been opened in our day. Down to 1858 very few ships had ventured there, and the coast of Japan was an ultima thule which few thought to reach. Now, there is a weekly steam line each way between China and Japan, and the irregular steamers and sailing ships are almost as numerous as the regular ones. The Oriental world has moved greatly in the last two decades.
Some of our maps locate Shanghai on the Yangtse-Kiang, a little distance from its mouth, but the fact is the city is 12 miles away from the great river, and on the banks of the Whampoa [Huangpu River]. The Whampoa enters the Yangtse at Woosung [annexed into Shanghai in 1964], and here the Government has recently erected forts to protect the passage and secure the exclusion of a hostile fleet in case China should be so unlucky as to be at war with another country.
Some of the deepest draught ships do not go above Woosung, but discharge and receive their cargoes at that point. Consequently, there is nearly always a small grove of masts at Woosung, and quite a town has sprung up there.
A railway—the only one in China—connects Woosung and Shanghai, and there is also a telegraph line. Both railway and telegraph have given great trouble to the Chinese, and there are frequent interruptions, particularly of the latter. The Celestials do not comprehend the working of the telegraph, and their understanding of it is that the foreigners employ agile and invisible devils to run along the wires to convey messages.
Now, let any mischief occur in the vicinity of the telegraph lines, the rumor at once goes about that one of the satanic couriers has neglected his duty, wandered from the wire, and made the mischief in question. The rumor raises a mob and the mob proceeds to smash the machine without delay. I am told that not infrequenly a mile or so of the line will be destroyed in a single night or day because somebody in its vicinity has fallen ill or gone to be an almond-eyed angel.
The low and monotonous banks of the Yangtse and Whampoa Rivers are a melancholy contrast to the steep hillsides, carefully terraced or clad in dense verdure and forest, that greet the stranger's eye in Nagasaki, Kobe, and other Japanese ports. The city stands on a bend of the river, and altogether the picture reminds you very forcibly of New-Orleans. There is the same swift-flowing and turbid river, the same sweep of bank with its fringe of steam-boats and barges, the same forest of masts from ships anchored in the stream or unloading at the wharves, and the same winding front of warehouses looking toward the water.
The river is covered with row-boats and small sailing craft, but in this feature you find that the reproduction of New-Orleans has not been very faithful. There are more boats and more sailing craft, but the former are sampans, and the latter are junks, and their pig-tailed crews bear little resemblence to the navigators of the Lower Mississippi.
Many of the sampans and junks have eyes painted on their bows, and the Chinese will explain to you, with the utmost gravity, that without these eyes there would be many accidents. In deference to Chinese prejudice, eyes have been given the foreign steamers engaged in navigating the Yangtse and other Celestial waters, and in this way much of the native opposition to steam vessels has been overcome. But the natives are less particular on this point than of yore, and many a sampan and many a junk may be found here as eyeless as the famous fish in the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky.
Shanghai presents, from the water, a finer appearance by far than any of the Japanese ports. And well she may, since she is much older, and has enjoyed a more profitable commerce. The Bund, as the street fronting the river is called, presents an array of imposing buildings, some of them several stories in height, and the great majority of a style of construction to intimate that land was cheap when the city was founded, and no one cared anything for expense.
The great houses of Russell & Co., Jardine & Co., and similar concerns, have palatial edifices, and the quarters of the Shanghai Club are spacious and luxurious enough to cause the envy of any club-goer of London or New-York.
In former times it was customary for the stranger arriving at Shanghai to leave his baggage on the ship and proceed at once to the house where he had letters of introduction. His letters were scanned, a room was assigned to him, and a servant went immediately for his trunks. He remained as long as he chose, and he slept, ate, and wined without the expenditure of a penny. The hospitality of Shanghai was more than princely, and one's entertainers were sincerely pleased to meet him.
But that was when strangers were rare, and before steam communication around the world had developed the "globe-trotter." They have changed all their customs nowadays, since travelers have become numerous, and hotels have opened their welcoming and high-priced doors.
Shanghai has at present nearly a dozen hotels of varying degrees of badness. The least disagreeable is the Astor; it is a far remove in more features than distance from its namesake in New-York. They have an easy way in the settlement of bills—that is, it is easy for the house and hard for the patron. A customer comes at noon one day, and leaves the next evening for a trip up the river, and is astounded to find himself charged with two days' board. He protests that he has been but 30 hours in the house, and at furthest should only pay for a day and a half. The clerk cuts him short with "it is our custom to charge a part of a day as one day; you have been here parts of two days and therefore you owe for two days' board."
Herein may be a useful hint for American landlords, and I add, free of charge, the suggestion of the aforesaid customer to the clerk of the Shanghai Astor House: "I have been here a part of one week and you may as well charge me for one week's board."
Chinese sights and sounds are abundant even in the foreign quarters of Shanghai. The streets abound with coolies carrying burdens, and as you go on shore from the steamer find dozens of these porters waiting for a chance to earn something. Wheelbarrows on which two persons sit, one on each side of the wheel, are numerous, but their passengers are almost invariably Chinese.
Strolling with a friend the evening of my arrival I suggest a wheelbarrow ride; he consents, and in a twinkling we are mounted and giving full employment to the propelling coolie. The street has been newly macadamized, and the vehicle is without springs. I don't think much of the wheelbarrow as a pleasure-carriage, and a ride of a couple of blocks suffices for our experiment.
I greatly prefer the Japanese jinrikisha [rickshaw], or man-power carriage, which has been recently introduced from Nagasaki. It is not as neat and comfortable as the Japanese original, but is quite convenient and far from dear. Ten cents an hour, or 50 cents a day, is the hiring price of these turn-outs. But it is not the mode to use a jinrikisha for anything like a pleasure drive; it is for business and nothing else.
Here in Shanghai any one who wishes to be counted respectable must have a horse and carriage of some kind, and make an appearance on the Bund and one of the out-of-town drives. Chinese ponies are the prevailing steeds, and some of them are capable of a fair amount of rapidity. California and other horses have been imported, but the climate affects them unfavorably, and most residents prefer the native stock. Natives are almost exclusively used at the races, and a vast amount of money changes hands at the Derby of Shanghai.
The creation of the globe-trotter and his increasing numbers have not been the only cause of the decline in the hospitality for which Shanghai was famous of yore. There has been a great decline in business, and profits are no longer princely; ergo the hospitality must follow the fate of the profits. When telegraphs were not and steamers were rare, a few houses had the most, and practically all, of the trade. Fast steamers were kept solely for the purpose of bringing the market quotations from Singapore and Hong Kong, and some of the most exciting races ever known were between the steamers of rival establishments. The party who knew the quotations for tea, silk, rice, and cotton a day in advance of anybody else had a good point, which he was pretty sure to use to advantage, and by the time the actual figures were known to the public he had the market all his own way.
For years the firms of Dent & Co. and Russel & Co. operated in this manner. The mails would reach Hong Kong by the Peninsular and Oriental ships, the private boats lay there with steam up, and as soon as they had their letters for Shanghai they were off like race-horses. They had no passengers, no freight, and no mails but their own—nothing that would make an extra burden, and I am even told that their Captains and crews were selected from the smallest men that could be found. Fast as steam and wind could drive them they sped up the coast. At Yangtse Point, the mouth of the river, a swift runner waited, and to him the letters were confided. The steamer did not come immediately to the city, lest some of her sailors or waiters or stokers might be carrying surreptitious messages; she waited below, and leisurely made her way up the Whampoa a day or two later.
On several occasions the pecuniary advantages thus gained were sufficient to pay the entire cost of the steamer and the expenses of her trip. Russell & Co. are said to have cleared $500,000 on one trip, $400,000 on another, and little trifles of $250,000 on several occasions. But the telegraph has changed all that, and the days of races are gone, probably forever. For a few dollars any one may know to-day's quotations in London or New-York, Paris, or St. Petersburg, and no one has any, or at all events much, advantage over another. Before the days of the telegraph all the trade was in a few hands, and no small fry operator had any chance whatever. Now, any one may speculate as much as he pleases, and no great house can crush him out in consequence of exclusive news, sometimes for several days.
I fancy that these old-time monopolists must regard the new state of things with a feeling not unmixed with disgust. How often do they sigh for the days that are gone, and heap maledictions on the new-fangled notions that have captivated and encircled the world!...
The profits are far less than of old, and frequently they are altogether the wrong way. This was the case last season with the tea busines, when the markets of Europe and America were very bad, and nearly every cargo was sold for less than the cost of delivery. Several small houses failed and went out of sight, and larger ones were compelled to make disagreeable entries on their ledgers and balance-sheets. All parties are obliged to operate on small margins, and the days of large fortunes, accumulated in a few years or earned in a single year, seem to be gone, with little prospect of return. Men who formerly laughed thousands to scorn are now glad to consider hundreds and even tens.
Of old, the dinner hour in Shanghai was resonant with volleys from the necks of champagne bottles, and the accumulated corks are said to have required scores of broom-bearing coolies to sweep them up and away. Now one hears only an occasional shot, and there are days when the pickets are altogether silent. The contrast between the old times and the new is very great and not altogether without advantages. Men live more soberly and seriously than was their wont, but there is yet a sufficient amount of dissipation, and the "awful examples" of fast living are decidedly more numerous than is desirable.
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Shenzhou news: Space News & Links - NY Times: Tea in China, 1854
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For centuries China stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the country was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats, and foreign occupation.
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