Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/764

756 TWENTIETH CENTURY IMPRESSIONS OF HONGKONG, SHANGHAI, ETC. Asiatsche Bank, and the Yokohama Specie Bank; several large foreign stores, at which foreign goods may be purchased; a Soldiers' Y.M.C.A.; the St. Michael's and John L. Hopkins' Memorial (Methodist Episcopal) Hospitals; a Catholic Church for the Legation Guards; the Methodist Mission Church, with accommodation for about 1,500 people; the Girls' School and Peking University, each with about 200 students, in connection with the Methodist Mission; the Lockhart Medical College, established by the London Mission for the encouragement of medical study in North China; the American Board Mission Church and School; and the Mission for the Blind. Near the Lockhart Medical College a monument has been erected to Baron von Ketteler, a German minister, whose murder at the hands of imperial soldiers, precipitated the crisis of 1900. In the north of the city stand the Presbyterian Mission, with its hospitals for male and female patients; and also the Northern Cathedral of the Roman Catholic Mission. The interesting Southern Cathedral of the last-named mission, which had existed for upwards of two centuries, was ruthlessly destroyed by the Boxers, as was also the Eastern Church. The mission of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts is in the western portion of the Chinese City.

Electricity for lighting purposes is supplied by a private company, and since 1884 Peking has been in direct telegraphic communication with the outside world by means of the overland line, via Tungchow to Tientsin and Taku. This line was destroyed during the Boxer troubles, but its place was taken for a time by a private line. Eventually it was relaid and handed over to the Imperial Chinese Telegraph Administration. The private line thus became the first inter-town telephone line in China, and was afterwards sold to the Chinese Government. A permanent agency has been established in the city by Reuter. Railway communication has