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There were merely the eleven Legations, the Inspectorate of Chinese Customs, with the aged Sir R H at its head, and perhaps a few favoured globe-trotters or nondescripts looking for rich concessions. Picnics and dinners, races and excursions, were the order of the day, and politics and political situations were not burning.
Twenty-five thousand cooks have been trained in the cookery schools of the Army, while a jealous watch has been kept on all waste and by-products under an Inspectorate of Economies. As to the care of the horses, in health or in sickness, the British Remount and Veterinary Service has been famed throughout Europe for efficiency and humanity.
The Austrian Legation is likewise a little too far away; but for the time being a triple line of barricades have gone up, having been constructed along the road between this Legation and the Customs inspectorate. To-day, the 16th, carts are no more to be seen on these streets; foot traffic is likewise almost at an end. There is a tacit understanding that everybody must act on the defensive.
Peking not being a seaport, and as yet but little influenced by foreign trade, the European community settled there is solely composed of the corps diplomatique and the legation guards, of the inspectorate of maritime customs, of professors of the various colleges, of missionaries and a few storekeepers.
Barricades were built across what was known as Inspectorate Street while the I.G. stood by and refreshed the thirsty workers with beer from his cellar; the big gate was loopholed, the walls strengthened, and clumsy look-out platforms, reminiscent of the Siege of Troy, constructed.
Indeed they did even more; with his permission they set to and fortified the Inspectorate compounds, turning his garden into a trampled wilderness.
Speaking of the latter, the I.G. one day remarked to Prince Ching, "I lost all my memoranda about it when the Inspectorate was burned down." "But you have your wonderful memory," the Prince replied, "and you must carry it through. I count upon you, remember." On Christmas Eve a great meeting was held at the Spanish Legation the Spanish Minister was doyen of the Diplomatic Corps at the time.
The Tientsin branch flourished equally well and became ultimately the Viceroy's band, and the mother of bands innumerable all over the metropolitan province of Chihli. But in reputation it never equalled what was known throughout China as the "I.G.'s Own." In spring and autumn his musicians gave an open-air concert in the Inspectorate garden every Wednesday afternoon.
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