Peking has its many military memories. In 1900 the Ninth and Fourteenth
Infantry, the Sixth Cavalry and the Marines of the cruiser _Newark_ of
the Americans fought their way here from the coast in General Gaselee’s
union column of relief. The Wei-Hai-Wei Regiment of British Chinese
in blue and white, came, too, with quotas from the forces of France,
Germany, Russia and Japan. The Sun Wui Club brings leading Chinese and
Occidentals together; that is, those Occidentals who have a maximum of
good sense and national ambition and a minimum of out-of-date, insular
“snobbery”. We once had a similar international club in Canton, which
did good work in destroying difference and welding approximation.
The Russian Mission in the Pei Kwan section of Peking is almost the
only effort of the vast Greek Church to missionize China. Good music
is now available, for both the National Customs and native armies,
and all the foreign legations have trained bands, and there are some
orchestras. The Union Medical College and Hospital on Hatamen Street
is most notable, not only because of its effectiveness, but because
the various evangelical denominations have first united in far away
China. Some writers, like Lord Salisbury’s son, Lord Cecil, think this
is the forerunner of union elsewhere. The example has been copied
generally in China, as at Nanking, Tsinan, Canton, etc., and before
long all medical, hospital and teaching work will be on the union plan
in all the large centers. The Chinese are eager to assist, and join in
with a whole heart. Reform started in Peking in 1898, when Kang Yu Wei
and other Cantonese, trained at Hongkong, got the ear of the Manchu
emperor, Kwang Hsu, and induced him to issue the famous reform edicts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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