Apart from any Munictpal_im-Provements, the city seems to be altering in' itself. One gote the Im-Pression, as if it were shrinking, and were contracting towards the centr This may perhaps be due to 9 fall ing-off: in the population. Or possibly they lave begun to feel "the modern urge to live all huddled together as close as possible. What-vor the reason, there are. distinct indications that the outlying parts within the walls are beginning to die off, and that the life of the city now concentrated in a eomparaively small area, The Southern, or: Chinese, City is! beginning to lose much of its former Importance as the main centre of business, shopping and amusements. Its place is being taken by two oF three main thoroughfares in. the southern part of the Tartar City, These have become the chief shop: ing centres, with numerous cinemas and restaurants. In this district there are quite a number of modern, buildings. and the old-fashioned one-storey Peking houses are rapidly disappearing. "Some of these main streets are fast losing the old Peking atmosphere and might almost art of Shanghai or other modern What is to be the eventual fate of Peiping it ig impossible to say at the present time, as ity future would appear to depend on the political developments in these parts,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.