790
:
SHANGHAI
native population is very much under-estimated," and he then considered that three- quarters of a million work within the Settlement, although they do not all reside there. Taking into consideration the thickly populated surrounding Chinese territory with its added thousands that cannot be even approximated, the daytime population of the port, it is thought, must be well toward 1,500,000. This rapid increase has occurred notwithstanding that rents have risen from thirty to sixty and in some cases even one hundred per cent. and that provisions and cost of living generally both of natives and foreigners have increased. The majority are immigrants from other provinces who followed in the wake of foreigners, attracted by the high wages paid to skilled and unskilled labour required for the many industries. The population of the native city is estimated by the Inspectorate of Customs at one million. This large congregation of over three quarters of a niillion natives in the Settlements and outlying roads, eight and two-thirds square miles, is kept in admirable order by a police force of 193 Europeans (284 is the authorised number, but 47 were at the end of the year on war service, others had resigned, and owing to the war no recruits were enlisted from home), 564 Sikhs, including 118 for gaol duty, 28 mounted troopers, and 1,462 natives for the north of the Yang-king-pang, being one constable for about each three acres, and for 284 head of population. There are nine police stations. There are 49 European, 247 Toukinese, and 346 Chinese police for the French Settlement, or about one constable for every 212 inhabitants. As the natives have to be tried by their own authorities, and bribery and obstruction have to be contended against, and there is a want of the facilities found elsewhere, the difficulties of organizing and efficiently working such a small force are considerable. In few places are life and property more secure. A few years since the Captain Superintendent stated that twenty-four hours had passed without one defaulter being reported, an unique police experience for any city in the world o' its population.
The following table shows the population and Municipal Revenue of the Settlement, exclusive of the French, for the past five quinquennial periods:-
Year
1895
Foreigners 4,684
1900
6,774
1905
11,497
19'0
13,526
1915
18,519
Natives
240,995
315,276
452,716
+88,005
620,401
CLIMATE
Ordinary Income Tls. 482,603
""
1,045,177
""
1,780,415
>>
2,555,056
,,
3,051,017
The climate of Shanghai is generally allowed to be fairly healthy. The death rate amongst the resident foreign population during the past two decades has ranged from 20.2 per thousand (in 1910) to 11.2 per thousand (in 1905). The rate including non-residents was considerably higher; it reached 34.6 per thousand in 1902, which, however, was exceptional. The number of registered deaths of foreign residents, including non-Chinese Asiatics (120 amongst Japanese), was 285 (including 86 children), and of non-residents, 95, in 1915. Partial outbreaks of cholera have occurred at intervals, but the larger proportion of the cases were among the ships in harbour. The highest recorded number of deaths from this cause among foreigners was 32 in 1890. Of these, 11 were amongst residents. With the exception of the year 1912, when there were 14 cases, there have been no deaths from cholera aniong foreign residents, the average being slightly over three per annum during the last twenty years. The highest number of deaths of foreign residents from small-pox was 21 in 1907. There were fifteen deaths from this cause in 1915; but the average during the last twenty years has been eight per annum. In winter, cases of small-pox and typhoid are frequent among the natives. Amongst the shore population the death rate was 18 per thousand in 1914, and 15.4 in 1915 (including Japanese). These rates compare favourably with those of many large towns in Europe and America, the urban rate for England during the previous year having been 15. The Health Officer in a late Report says that "out of the seventy-five deaths registered there were but nine which can in any sense be termed climatic." There were reported 9,663 deaths amongst the natives in the "Anglo-American Settle- ment" in 1912, 8,062 in 1913, and 8,173 in 1915, which make the rate 19.3, 15'8 and 132 per thousand. Small-pox, which in 1909 claimed only 19 victims, was the cause of 863 deaths of natives in 1907, the annual average during the past two decades being 227; cholera has been entirely absent amongst the Chinese in the Settlements since 1908, although there were 13 deaths among them in 1906 and 655 in 1907; scarlet fever, which caused 1,500 deaths of Chinese in 1902, average 63 in the subsequent thirteen years, and tuberculosis which accounted for 2,000 in 1902, steadily decreased to 618 in
F