31 Years in Chinese Customs:
Recollections of Old Days Among the passengers who. sailed on May 10 were Mr. and Mrs, E. B. Howell, who fare going home to England to live. Mr. Howell has retired after 3 years in China Customs. He as being "uneventful, rely of "the regular duties of is toms' officer." Yet he ha served in 12 Chinese ports, and while his own experiences may not have been very adventurous he has seen the growth and development of China for 81 years and all the political fracas and warfare which has been connected with it.
Mr. Howell began his duties in 'Swatow in 1899, the year before the Boxer rebellion. The Viceroy in' Canton was wise enough to see that the policy of the Boxers was bound to fail and there was no trouble in that region. In 1901 he went to Nanking where he stayed for two ears. There was no railway i those days nor for several years to come and Mr. Howell used to shoot duck and snipe in the marsh where the hind of the Pukow Railway now stands. From Nanking he was transferred to Tientsin and here he remained for three years before going home on hi ater eight years in China.
After 20 months Mr. Howell returned to China and was appointed fo Shanghai. It was, in those days, a very small town. There were ne hon beyond the Race Course ard try Club was indeed away out in the country. The streets were all narrow and crooked and Fined with the tiny: shops of Chines merchants.
19 ferred for a lightful hat uneventtal. Daring the autumn of the same year he mind the intricate trip yeh. on the Burmese frontier. la the province of Yunnan. In order to get there it was necessary to 0 to Shanghai, Hongkong, Singapore, Rangoon, and up the Irrawaddy River. When Mr. Howell's steamer landed him in Bhamo there yet remained a week's journey throug' the jungles of upper Burma.
In Tengyuch Mr. Howell remain. ed three years, during which time hho took a great deal of interest in I history. It was there that he discovered a rose, deep-yellow in colour and large-hearted. The rore was new to science and, although it somewhat resembles the Gloire de Dijon, it was a new discovery. The rose, which now grows various parts of Mr. Howell was transferred to Poking in 1913 and remained there the beginning of the war when 1919. Then he went second leave to England "when th tael was worth seven shillings.' During the ten years interim of,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.