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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



A CHARACTERISTIC EXPRESSION OE THE EATE EMPRESS DOWAGER 



common and most nourishing article of 

 food, popular with all the people, and is 

 a clean and most attractive looking dish. 



The Japanese, with their mania for in- 

 vestigation and analysis, have found that 

 the liquid left from making the bean 

 curd, and which used to be thrown away, 

 has the same chemical value as milk, and 

 is, of course, many times cheaper. 



Europe at present uses the beans for 

 making candles, soap, and dog biscuits, 

 and as an adulterant for other flours. 

 The oil is a substitute for olive oil that 

 threatens to displace our cotton-seed 

 imitation of olive oil. 



Beside the great Japanese firm of the 

 Mitsui, who started the boom in beans by 

 their gigantic transactions, several Eng- 

 lish firms, including the representative of 

 the Rothschilds and several German 

 firms, have gone into this bean export 

 business, and have established bean mills 

 or oil mills and built godowns on a large 

 scale — the open door quite satisfactorily 

 open to them. Before the war, the beans 

 were carted to the river bank in winter, 

 when the ground was frozen as hard as a 

 road, and sent down to Newchwang by 

 junks. The trade by junks has not fallen 

 ofif, and this enormous railroad freight 



