Foochow is eminently a city of past glories.
'The great days of the tea trade and. the Clipper ships have gone, ever to return, and there seems to be nothing likely' to take their place. At the height of its glory, 70,000,000 pounds of tea are said to have been exported in one year; to-day 4,000,000 pounds is "considered a satisfactory season. As the administrative capital of the province and an important educational centre, it still takes rank fs the largest city in Fukien, but its trade is negligible and the inhabitants POOF.
The cliy has undergone certain im~ the old Several broad streets have been constructed. It even possesses automatic telephone system, But while it has lost most of its former picturesqueness, it falls to make a really modern impression. Yet the change in its appearance is really remarkable, when one remembers that lite more than ten years ago wheeled traflle was totally unknown in Foochow. And proof hereof is the comparatively small number of bicycles one sees in the strects—a fact especially striking to the visitor from the north; for the bicycle is only just now beginning to come into fashion, 'The streets seemed to me rather noisier than even usual in Chinese cities, For some of the large shops have' a curious form of musical advertisement; small orchestras are hired to sit in the shop front and discourse loud, if not sweet music, to attract, one presumes, the musleloving' customer, Anyhow, when several such orchestras are' playing atone and the same. time neighbouring shops, the din is quite tereife.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.