Brought by his parents to Shang. hai in 1870, he was about one of the first boys to attend St. Francis Xavier's College, which opened six ears later. It was in that year 1876, hat he rode in th train' ever to run on rails on- Chinese soil,. when the Chinese, with great pomp and ceremony, inaugurated the first rail service from Shanghai to" Woosung, 1 distance of about nine miles. This railway says Mr, Edwards, was not} very successful for several reasons.
The boat people along the river did not like this competition on land so they bribed the country people lie on the rails. The train, which had two /engines, "Celestial Empire and the "Far Cathay," had either to top or run over them and there were ways big claims from someone or other Also in that year he met General U, S. Grant—afterwards President of the United States—when he visited China. General Grant was intro. duced to his father, who in turn it troduced his nine year old son. 1! is one of Edwards' proudest recollect tions that General Grant shook hands with him and called him a "fine-tad. That year was a momentous one for the lad and he re-called several other incidents and wondered if an. other white man was living who could remember them. One unique event was when Captain Tipp or app of the Consulate climbed the British Consulate flag-staff for a to be given to charity. He talks of another hair raising sigh' He w only 50 feet away, when the brother of the. late Sydenham Moutrie of Moutrie & Ca,, takins part in a Fire Brigade procession before General Grant, was disembowel led by the explosion of a tin of gunpowder, The top of the tin missed Fdwards' head by inches and imbedded itself in a tree, in the British Consulate compound.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.