In the two years which had elapsed since then this attitude was completely changed, for the army was paid regularly and not obliged to prey upon the habitants for sustenance, the strictest discipline was observed, and no soldier was allowed to loaf about the streets. The city itself underwent a wonderful purification: gambling dens, opium-smoking halls, houses of ill repute were swept away, and theatres transformed into schools; now a woman even can walk the streets day or night without fear. A notice of three days to quit was given to the above-mentioned houses, and the order was no dead letter. Severe fines were inflicted on traffickers in opium. The streets of the town became wonderfully clean in another sense of the word; the General is so particular about this that if any of the army mules or horses pass through it they are followed by scavengers in order that no traces of their passage may remain; for as there is no wheeled traffic and the streets are extremely narrow there are no side-walks. There are notices in the centre of the streets with regard to the rule of the road, but this is too recent an innovation to be quite understood as yet. Everywhere one is confronted with signs of the General’s determination to raise the _moral_ of the people. When he closed the opium dens he opened refuges for the cure of the smoker, instead of putting him in prison, as is done in certain parts of the North. The patient was photographed on entering and on leaving (à la Barnardo). General Feng punishes with death the soldier proved to have been trafficking in the sale of opium, while the civilian is punished by being flogged and paraded bare-backed afterwards through the streets, preceded by a notice board stating his offence. The city gaol is the only one in the country which has a chapel and the missionary bodies in the town have charge—a month at a time by turns. As you pass along the streets your eye is attracted by posters of a novel kind. They are pictures descriptive of evil habits to be shunned: a cock is vainly sounding the réveillé to which the sluggard pays no heed; the vain woman on her little bound feet watches from afar the industrious woman doing her task in cheerful comfort with normal feet, and so on. In odious contrast to these pictures are the British and American cigarette posters to be found all over the country, and I was told that one of the leading Englishmen in the trade said regretfully that he thought they had done the country no good turn in introducing cigarettes to China. They are considered a curse by thoughtful Chinese, and at the request of the officers, the General has prohibited the use of them in the army, though there is no embargo on other tobacco-smoking. [Illustration: A Man of Mark. _Page 158_]