Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/778

770 and was employed as an accountant by the China and Japan Trading Company at their Kobe branch. In 1901 he crossed over to Chefoo, and eventually succeeded to the management of Messrs. L. H. Smith &amp; Co.





future of Messrs. Chang Yü &amp; Co.—known also as the Pioneer Wine Company—wine growers, distillers, and merchants, will be watched with great interest, for the firm are engaged in an enterprise which is the only one of its kind east of Suez. Established as a private company in 1895, and financed by Chinese capital, the firm have planted about two hundred acres with vines in the Chefoo district, and have established nurseries for fostering the specially imported plants and cuttings in the early stages of their growth. The most improved methods of cultivation are adopted, and so far with most encouraging results. For the pressing of the wine extensive premises have been built under the supervision of Mr. Chang Ching King, manager of the Company, and Baron M. von Babo, their wine expert. The latest machinery has been installed, and, though the wine is not yet on the market, there is every reason to hope that it will soon attain a large measure of popularity in Chefoo and the Far East. The cellarage has a storage capacity of about twenty thousand hectolitres of wine, the largest cask being capable of holding 160 hectolitres. Both red and white wines in casks and bottles will be supplied, and the quality promises to be excellent.

The founder and proprietor of the firm, Mr. Chang Chin Hsün, alias Thio Tiauw Siat, was born in Canton in 1841, and educated in China. He lived for forty years in the East Indies, and owns extensive property in Java, the Straits Settlements, and Sumatra. He has lately been appointed a director of the Agricultural and Industrial Mining and Railway Company of Canton.

Baron M. von Babo, the Pioneer Wine Company's expert, also holds the appointment of Vice-Consul for Austria-Hungary. He was born in Klosterneuburg, near Vienna, in 1862, and was educated in Vienna. On coming of age he went to England for four and a half years, returning to Austria in 1888. In 1896 he came to Chefoo as wine expert to the Pioneer Wine Company, upon the recommendation of the Austrian Government. He superintended the erection of the stores and plant, and to him is due, in great measure, the present promising position of the Company. Baron Babo, who is a Knight of the Order of Franz Joseph, is a thorough sportsman, and has won great popularity in the district.

The manager of the Company, Mr. Chang Ching King, was born in Canton in 1873 and educated at St. Xavier's Institution, Penang. He came to Chefoo when twenty-three years of age, and joined the Pioneer Wine Company, of which his uncle is the proprietor. Mr. Chang has the Prefectural title.