The Face of China by Emily Georgiana Kemp

Chengtu is unquestionably the cleanest city in China, and probably is the most progressive and enlightened of any purely native city. The streets are broad and well kept, and the foreigner can walk anywhere without the slightest fear of molestation. At almost every street corner there is a policeman, and many of them have sentry-boxes. They are neatly dressed in a sort of European uniform, and are decidedly clean and civil. They wear a kind of small black sailor-hat, and the smarter ones wear black thread gloves of native manufacture and carry stout walking-sticks. Altogether, they are the best type of police we met. There are no beggars with their hideous whine and incomparable dirt. This is a magnificent triumph for the head magistrate, as a few years ago they numbered twenty thousand in Chengtu; but he was determined to put an end to the system, and has entirely succeeded. We met a large school of boys neatly dressed, and were told that these were the children of the beggars, whom he had collected into a large school, where they are taught trades at the expense of the municipality.

On the day of our arrival a kind friend offered to take us round the city. For the first time since leaving Shanghai, we found we could go on a real shopping expedition, and we had a glorious afternoon of it. It would be hard to find a more fascinating place than Chengtu for shopping. The curio shops had much that was attractive, though nothing of any great value. We were told that we must proceed with great caution if we wished to get things at a reasonable price; and fortunately we were able to discuss in an unknown tongue, which was a great advantage to us in dealing with the shopkeepers. Our method of procedure was as follows: -- firstly, to look with interest at all the things we did _not_ want, such as a baby's feeding-bottle or old beer-bottles; secondly, to point out all the flaws in anything that we _did_ want, turning up our noses till they were nearly out of joint; thirdly, to ask the prices of many things, and to exclaim "Ai-ah" in an incredulous tone on hearing the price of the things that we wanted to purchase. Then we named a price about five times below what was asked. Finally we left the shop and strolled away up the street, while our kind friend further discussed the matter with the shopkeeper, we having previously arranged with him in English how high we were willing to go.