Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/85

Rh site of the yamens of the Viceregal court and of a series of modern manufactories imported wholesale from the West. Hankow is further remarkable as the scene of a slowly awakening movement in favour of modern industrial methods, and as the capital of the famous Viceroy Chang Chih Tung.

To Chang Chih Tung is undoubtedly largely due the industrial activity of the place. Arsenal and powder factory, mint, steel works and cotton mills, silk filatures, silk-weaving and grass-cloth establishments, all owe their existence to official inspiration; while private enterprise is represented by the famous brick-tea factories, a glass furnace, flour mills, and cotton-pressing establishments. Of these, the cotton mills and other textile industries have recently been freed from the burden of official management by passing into the hands of a business syndicate at a rent of 100,000 taels a-year,—a change which has proved of conspicuous advantage to the industry. About 40,000 spindles and 500 looms were at work in the cotton mills when I visited them; and though the workers here were all men and boys, the