To emphasize these points, the following instances are given in which fengshui played its part in opposition to progress. Thus, the opposition to railways unquestionably has its root in the necessary outrage to vital beliefs in the preservation of Nature's handiwork, and in the introduction of the deliberate curves so abhorrent to the spirits of evil. This inspired the opposition to the Woosung line and may be caused the suicide which wrecked this first essay in railway building. Similarly, in Hankow, a road which severed a hill in the city had to be obliterated as the result of popular clamour fearful for the tuck of the city. Frequent fires in the city of Peking were alleged as an indication of divine wrath at the threatened approach of the railway in 1889 and contributed to the eight years' delay which resulted from opposition founded on inimical vested interests, antediluvian stra-fogy, and superstition. Every engineer who has worked in the country has at one time or another encountered suppliant village fathers vehement in the defence of a graveyard or the backbone of hill, and shrilly supported by ribald, coughing, garlic breathing chorus denying escape from their odoriferous poverty-diseased proximity until consideration of their case is promised.
Only once has fengshui fought on the side of progress, in the early days of the telegraph, when some rash prophet promised twins toa household over which he passed his wires, and, receiving the reward of courage, acquired a warlord's reputation and a royal right of way for his lines. In general feng shut remains the brightest and keenest weapon in the armoury of the opponents of progress and will thus remain until education engenders speculation and reasoning faculties or a government arises strong enough to over-ride the consequences of these insane beliefs Mex Vu-chu, former chief judge of the Shanghai District Court, who is alleged to have absconded with $200,060 from the public funds, is reported by the Chinese press to have escaped to the south.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.