Kirin, Feb. 10.
I had occasion recently to travel along the proposed route of the Kaiyuan-Hailunchéng railway. I understand that a rough survey was no engineering difficulties made last year. There seem to be
The proposed line is to run through the prosperous market towns of Taolu and Tungfenghsien. It is a wonderfully fertile agricultural district and the cart traffic on the road I travelled iv greater than any Thave seen in Manchuria. We passed thousands of carts of beans every day.
The sooner the railway line is built the better. It will pay immensely. East and north of the terminus, Hailungchéng, are vast stretches of bean-growing land.
At present this region li afflicted with the curse of brigandage. Over and over again one heard talea of violence and robbery. Last month a party of missionaries was stopped by these gentlemen of the road about eighteen li from Chaoyangehen, The robber band consisted of about fifty mounted men, whereas the police guard of Chaoyangchea did not amount to more than half that number. The brigands took the party back two li inn, called out the innkeeper and inn-hands as witnesses, and told them that, as they were foreigners, they would not take anything them lest they should get the Hailungchéng magistrate into trouble!
The country around Chaoyang: chen has been greatly hindered in developing owing to this insecurity of life and property. A railway and a force of s few hundred soldiers would be sufficient to confine the robber bands to the sparsely populated frontier of Korea and develop the immense agricultural riches of the whole district,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.