Peit'ungchou er North i'ungeh m, thirteen miles ea of Peking, was formerly a eivy of political and commercial importance.
was the seat of prefectural examinations for the twenty-five districts surrounding P-king, and is situated at the head of navigaim on the Peiho, a part of the God Canal. The Boxer outrages of 1900 were probably mors virulent here than in any other section of the country, chiefly "wing to the fuct that the trade of the city had been reduced two-thirds by the railway feom Tientsin to Peking. is said that 20,000 people of this city were put out of employment thereby, and the town was killed, commercially. Boxer hands from T'ungchou tore up the railway at Féngtsi, and Inte-, destroyed the lire building of the North' China Colwht missionary residences, and the chapels, schools, and disp sary of the American Board, as well as all offices of foreign, hongs on the river bank. Of the native church membership of two hundred ani fifty, one huwdre! and forty were killed. On the advance of the Allied troops, two-thirds of the business part of the city were burned, and other paris were badly injured ly the explosion of powder magazines, The poni-ment of te place Was more severe than that of either Tientsin or Peking. The business paris are now partially rebuilt, and trods has slightly recovered, in spite of thy bunch railway from Peking, bull: by the Britis Railway Administiation, with the avowed object of crippling the small river traffic in rice and wood that remains The Political Importance of the place is increas a, however, as it has been made the seat of the ary camps formerly located at Lutai, near the coast. The experiences of the' war seemed to indie.te that the chief military centre he-tween Peking and the sea should be near the capital, The head-quarters of General Ma Yii-kun are here, and some twenty camps of five hundred linen ewh, ave in and around the city, which, like Peking avd Paotingfu, is full of soldiers.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.