30/42 A fund of twenty million dollars is to be spent in constructing a national system of telephone and telegraph. Peking is now pointing with wonder and delight to a new exchange, spick and span, with a couple of ten-thousand-wire switchboards. Others are being built in Canton, Hankow, and Tien-Tsin. Ultimately, the telephone will flourish in China, as it has done in the Chinese quarter in San Francisco. The Empress of China, after the siege of Peking, commanded that a telephone should be hung in her palace, within reach of her dragon throne; and she was very friendly with any representative of the "Speaking Lightning Sounds" business, as the Chinese term telephony. |