Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/750

742 E. MARZOLI. The business now carried on by Mr. E. Marzoli was established by his brother, Mr. L. Marzoli in 1901. At first Mr. L. Marzoli confined his attention to the conduct of a large trade in anthracite coal and lime, but in 1904 he opened a calcareous brick factory at Huangtsun, and since that time the enter- prise has been extended in various directions. Cement works and granite quarries have been acquired, and Carrara marble and Venetian mosaic tiles are imported in considerable quantities. At the brick works some 5,000,000 bricks are produced each year, and the granite from the quarries has been used in many of the principal buildings in Tientsin and Peking. Mr. L. Marzoli died at Peking in 1907, and the business is now entirely in the hands of Mr. E. Marzoli, who is a native of Varese, Italy. A. H. JAQUES & CO. The firm of Messrs. A. H. Jaques & Co., though established only as recently as 1901, has quickly taken its place among the leading houses in Tientsin, and may be re- garded as the local " Whiteley's." While supplying articles of every description, they make a speciality of furniture from their own factory. The firm believes in the old-fashioned method of making furniture by hand, whereby quality, durability, and finish are alike secured. Their workmen are recruited from Ningpo- Chekiang, where most of the cabinet-makers in China are to be found, and though men employed on piece-work are sometimes difficult to manage, the firm of "Kung Yih " — to give the Chinese name — have such an enviable reputation for fair dealing that they have yet to record their first hitch or strike. In the manufacture of furniture of modern design Chinese workmen may lack originality, but they stand unequalled in the art of copying. The firm has, therefore, engaged an expert European designer, under whose supervision all work is tarried out. The excellence of the furniture is attested by the fact that the workmen are almost continually

TIMBER YARD OF THE CHINA IMPORT AND EXPORT LUMBER COMPANY (LTD.) AT TIENTSIN. employed on the numerous orders with which the firm is entrusted, both by Europeans and Chinese. One of these orders was for a tapestried drawing-room suite for the imperial summer residence at Peking. Others have been received from many of the leading hotels, clubs, banks, and official residences in North China. The Chinese name of A. H. Jaques & Co., " Kung Yih," is as much a household word in North China as is the name of Maple in England.

Messrs. Jaques & Co. are agents for the handsome block known as the Victoria Buildings, which is among the finest of the kind in North China. The block contains about one hundred rooms, iitted with every convenience, including electric lighting and steam-heating, and suitable either for business or residential purposes.

Mr. A. H. Jaques, who founded the business, is managing director and proprietor of the firm.

MELCHERS & CO.

There are few places of any commercial importance in the Far East where branches of the well-known firm of Messrs. Melchers & Co. are not to be found. The Tientsin branch, with offices in the Taku Road, was opened by Mr. Haupt in 1897, and has gained a strong position amongst local commercial liouses. Apart from their own export and import business, the firm represent in Tientsin the following, among other, companies : — The Norddeutscher Lloyd ; the East Asiatic Com- pany, Ltd., Copenhagen ; the Ocean Accident and Guarantee Corporation, Ltd. ; the Globus Fire Insurance Company, Ltd., of Hamburg ; the Salamander Fire Insurance Company, Ltd., of Amsterdam ; the Swedisli East Asiatic Company, Ltd., of Gothenberg ; the Nord- stern Life Insurance Company, Ltd., of Berlin ; and the Maatschappij Tot Mijn Boschen Landbouwexploitatie in Lang Kat, Ltd. (supplying a well-known brand of kerosene). The Company are also general managers for the Equitable Life Assurance Company of the United States. The Tientsin branch is under the direction of Mr. Karl F. Melchers, who assumed the duties in IQ02. Born in 1877 at Bremen, where he was educated, he joined the firm at their head office, in Bremen, in 1893. In

THE TIENTSIN PREMISES OF VON DtfRING, WIBEL &. CO.