Canton, Ohio

“ OHIO, Stark County, Canton, Ridgewood Historic District, Roughly bounded by Market and Gibbs Ave., and 21st and 24th Sts. (12/19/82)
OHIO, Trumbull County, Girard, Barnhisel, Henry II, House, 1011 N. State St. ”

“ The streets, amounting in all to upwards of 600, are long, straight, and very narrow. They are mostly paved and are not as dirty as those of some of the other cities in the empire; in fact, considering the habits of the people and the inattention of Government to these matters, Canton may be said to be a well-governed and comparatively cleanly city. ”

“ PHYSIC STREET—A CHINESE CROWD—A CANTONESE PICKPOCKET—BEGGARS AND BARBERS. Honest travellers, who have visited Canton, have related twenty times the endeavours they have made to enter the walled city, the dangers they have encountered and the semi-success they have met with. Semi-success is an expression which disguises a poor falsehood ”

“ Extending from the morning shadow of the Blue Hills to the line of Stoughton and of Sharon on the south, Canton occupies an area of a little over nineteen square miles in Norfolk County. Its population has grown from about one thousand at the time of its incorporation to about five thousand with one thousand or so legal voters. ”

“ I cannot understand what we are fighting for, and why Sir John Bowring should think himself degraded by an interview with Governor Yeh at Howqua's packing-house. This is a topic worth nothing but a laugh.
But is this admission to Canton, for which we are fighting, of any use? Canton is a walled city, occupied by a native population, with streets eight feet wide. Would any Englishman ever dream of living in such a place? Does an Englishman live in the Turkish quarters of Constantinople? ”

“ And Tommy wondered how the little boys could play ball, and if they didn’t want to slide down hill, or climb trees, or pick berries, and so on and so on. And every one on us see what wuz for us to see in the movin’ panoramy.
Canton is a real queer city. The streets are so narrer that you can almost reach out your hands and touch the houses on both sides, they are not more than seven or eight feet wide. ”

“ The residence of the commander-in-chief is in the old city, and is said to be one of the best houses in Canton. There are four prisons in the city, all large edifices. For the space of four or five miles opposite Canton boats and vessels are ranged parallel to each other in such close order that it resembles a floating city; and these marine dwellings are occupied by numerous families, who reside almost constantly on the water. In the middle of the river lie the Chinese junks, some of them of from 600 to 1000 tons burden, which trade to the north and to the Strait Settlements. ”

“ What a different picture Canton presents to Shameen. They say there are millions of people in Canton. The streets, many of which are roughly paved with stone, seem little over a yard in width. The shops, with their gayly colored and handsomely carved signs, are all open, as if the whole end facing the street had been blown out. In the rear of every shop is an altar, gay in color and often expensive in adornment. As we were carried along the roads we could see not only the usually rich and enticing wares, but the sellers and buyers. Every shop has a book-keeper's desk near the entrance. ”

“ Canton is so old that even the native custodians of local tradition have lost count of the years since it was founded. Some of the ancient coolies crouching near the wharves and sunning their wrinkled skins look as if they might be able to tell the age of their city; but a whimsical question elicits only a request for alms, mumbled with a mouth which has lost its teeth, so that the owner meets with difficulty in chewing even the small portions of food needed to keep the spark of life aglow in his shaky body. ”

“ Seen from the city wall or any very high point, Canton seems a city of roofs, with scarcely an opening and not a vestige of green. The narrow streets are many of them covered with awnings. It is a city of great color, the brilliant signs, the covered palanquin chairs, the costumes of the wealthy Chinese, all contributing to the riotous effect. It is a city of very wide contrasts, for rich and poor jostle each other on the streets and their homes are often side by side. ”

“ Just a Cycle ago, a gentleman came on board the ship 'Citizen,' as she anchored at Lintin, China, from New York, to hear the latest news she may have brought—125 days old!—the interval was a short one at that time.
Such as Canton then was in its commercial, social, and domestic life it has been for two generations a sealed book; nor will the world ever see its like again! ”

“ I sympathise with the position of the English merchants at Canton. It is not a pleasant thing to live on the borders of a river, and not to have a distance of two miles for exercise. At all events it would not suit me, who am fond of exercise, and I should be most glad to see them in the course of being emancipated from that state of duress in which they are placed at Canton. One of my reasons for regretting that which is being done is, that it tends to retard indefinitely any such extension of the liberty of my countrymen. ”

“ No city in Europe can give an idea of the movement and life which reign in the streets of Canton. The streets of Canton alone can convey an idea of the feverish activity which reigns on the Tchou-kiang. In the midst of this prodigious passing and repassing, of goods in the course of being shipped and unshipped, of faï-tings, of lorchas, of junks, of vessels coming to anchor or setting sail, of mandarins cruising about in their rich craft, and of tradesmen proceeding to business, the itinerant cooks enumerate their ragouts ”

“ EDUCATION AND LITERATURE IN CANTON.
Canton is not only a great focus of commerce, and a city of pleasure and luxury; it is also a literary and cultivated city. Hither come, every three years, the siou-tsaï of the viceroyalty of Kuang-ton and Kuang-si, to undergo, before a member of the College of the Han-Lin, delegated by the Emperor, an examination by which they may earn the degree of kiu-jèn.
There is not a country in the world where there are such facilities of education for children of all ranks as China. ”

“ The floating-town of Canton is, to all the Europeans who visit the Celestial Empire, the object of an exclusive predilection; for them China, the real China, the fantastic China of our screens, fans, and lacquer work, is all on the river which balances on its overhanging surface, &c., a population more numerous than that of Marseilles, Naples, Vienna, or Turin. ”

“ There are other sites available and quite suitable for homes of whatever character of importance, in true country houses amid spacious and somewhat remote grounds, or in dwellings for all the year use near the lines of communication. Land values are as yet, it may be mentioned, comparatively low.
While the development of Canton as a place of desirable residence has been so notable there has been also proper growth in manufacturing importance. Iron and saw making began in Canton in 1787. In 1801
The Neponset Woolen Mills, Canton. ”

“ It is also to be remembered that, in a large commercial city like Canton, a great number of bad and discontented characters are collected from all quarters. Its reputation for wealth made it a desirable field for the adventurer, while the prospect of the loss of a great portion of its trade served to produce a general discontent among the residents. Every great change, however, is commonly attended with some difficulty at first, nor was it likely that the people of Canton could readily forget the day when our troops dictated terms for the ransom of the city, from the heights above it. ”

“ So, to identify his own property, Ching Wan dyed all his chickens' tails orange, whilst Hung To's fowls scratched about with mauve tails, and Kyang Foo's hens gave themselves great airs on the strength of their crimson tail feathers.
It is curious that, in spite of its wealth and huge population, Canton should contain no fine temples. The much-talked-of Five-Storied Pagoda is really hardly worth visiting, except for the splendid panorama over the city obtained from its top floor. Canton here appears like one endless sea of brown roofs extending almost to the horizon. ”

“ In reality, of all the Western nations, the Americans only are at home, and have built at Canton a palace worthy of the conquerors of our age, of the rivals of the English, of the peaceful soldiers of prosperity and industry. ”

“ After all, the Chinese who have immured the Europeans in a ghetto, have shut themselves up in a similar prison, and the vast enclosure inside which they have retired differs from the other only by the melancholy originality of certain official residences. To speak the truth, there exists only one joyous, poetical, noisy, and laborious Canton ”

“ Before the shops, at every street-corner, and along the houses, were to be seen groups of beggars, blind men keeping close to the walls and guiding themselves by a pole, jobbing tailoresses patching up and mending old clothes, and barbers shaving some decrepit old man, or curling the hair of some street fashionable. The beggars enjoy a singular privilege at Canton: they may station themselves at the door of any shop, singing and striking their pieces of bamboo against each other for hours together, while the proprietor has not the right to drive them away! ”

“ Here, the stranger will be surprised to see dogs, cats, and rats hawked about, dead and alive. I do not say that these animals form the daily food of the people of Canton, but they are daily and hourly hawked about its streets, and purchased by the poorer classes. The Canton market is, nevertheless, remarkably well supplied with the good things of this life; and the European who cannot live and be contented with the provisions procurable in it, must be hard to please. By nine o'clock at night, this huge city is perfectly quiet, and nine-tenths of its inhabitants are wrapped in sleep. ”

“ Canton is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Toledo, Peoria & Western, and the Illinois Central Electric Interurban railways. About 1 m. from the centre of the city are the Canton Chautauqua grounds. The city has a public library. Canton is situated in a rich agricultural region, for which it is a supply point, and there are large coal-mines in the vicinity. ”

“ The three parts which form the capital of Kuang-ton are the suburbs and walled city, which is divided into the old or Tartar city, and the new or Chinese city. The suburbs, which, like the boulevards in Paris, are the best, handsomest, richest, and most commercial part of Canton, occupy on the south and west the ground between the Tchou-kiang and the walls of the two fortified cities, and on the east, where they lose their importance, some low and muddy land, on which are scattered a few huts. ”

“ Canton is a city of walls and temples; narrow streets and lanes of water; flower boats and other river craft; jostling humanity and high-pitched voices; sedan chairs and perspiring coolies; native merchants and prodigal sons; foreign merchants and diplomats — an old, old city, whose lower classes think cockroaches in honey and snakes in broth a rare combination well suited to the most fastidious tastes.
Those travelers who bide a while in Hongkong before embarking on the water journey to Canton will be rewarded with a colorful glimpse of Chinese life ”

“ I have been intimately acquainted with him during that time, and I know him to be one of the greatest men of the nation. He may not be a strong man in every direction; I do not think he is strong enough to follow his convictions upon our question. He knew better concerning us than any man in public life, that is, he knew more of us. He was brought up in Ohio, near where our people had lived in early days, in the days of his childhood. He was familiar with men who had been members of our Church, and I believe was connected remotely by marriage with some of our people ”

“ In all Canton there is not a wheeled vehicle, street-car, hotel, or mouthful of food appealing to the convenience or appetite of the visitor from the West; and apart from your own coterie of sight-seers, you may for days be about the streets of the vast city without seeing a person wearing the habiliments of Europe. That section of Canton known as Shameen, in reality an island suburb, is set apart under concessions to the United States and certain European powers, and the consuls, missionaries and foreign merchants there dwell surrounded by many of the comforts of home. ”

“ The foreign population of Canton is made up of about fifty persons of different nations, mostly occupying a fine range of buildings, called Factories, fronting a beautiful garden of about two acres square, with high walls at the ends, and extending to the river; it is filled with every variety of tropical trees, plants, and flowers, and affords a delightful lounge upon Chinese settees, or a fine promenade upon its cemented walks. ”

“ In these stations there were 55 missionaries labouring in 1884, together with 18 single ladies, making a total of 73: out of the 73 there are 57 residing in the three cities above named. The city of Canton, in which 25 of them reside, is very large, being equal in population to Liverpool, Manchester, and Brighton together; and we need scarcely say their number is all too small to work it efficiently. But if Canton is not too well supplied, what then of the other 161/2 millions scattered over the province? ”

“ The first impression of Canton is one of noise, a fearful din rising and falling in a kind of cadence, and seeming to proceed largely from an immense flotilla of boats extending a long way, tied, in a majority of cases, seven and eight rows deep—craft of all kinds, sampans, junks, rice boats, freight, each with its quota of humanity, for this is a veritable floating city, with a life all its own, and almost wholly independent of the Canton proper which we were about to visit and which numbered a hundred thousand souls. ”