716
SHANGHAI
Towards the close of 1913 additional land at a cost of about Tls. 555,000 was purchased and plans were prepared and submitted to the President R.1.B.A. for a new block of Cen- tral Municipal Offices to occupy the whole of the site bounded by Hankow, Kiangse, Foochow and Honan Roads. The work of construction was commenced in March, 1915, and completed in 1922, at a cost of one and three-quarter million Taels, the open- ing ceremony being performed by Mr. H. G. Simms, Chairman of the Municipal Council, on November 16th. The site of the whole administrative block is nearly 26 mow,in extent and the assessed value is approximately Tls. 1,600,000. The main part of the building is on Hankow Road, overlooking the Cathedral compound. Being of massive construction, and with every detail carefully worked out with an eye to architectural beauty, and with a central ornamental tower reaching 150 feet above the ground, the offices form an imposing
new
an imposing pile. A new
A new Mixed Court was completed in 1899. A monument to the memory of Mr. A. K. Margary, of the British Consular service, who was murdered by Chinese in Yunnan, was unveiled in June, 1880, and a statue of the late Sir Harry Parkes, British Minister to Peking, was erected in 1890. A bronze monument in memory of the crew of the German gunboat Iltis, lost in a typhoon off the coast of Shantung on 25th July, 1896, was erected on the Bund, at the end of the Peking Road in November, 1898, but was broken down during the Armistice celebrations in 1918.. A bronze statue by Mr. Henry Pegram, A.R.A., of Sir Robert Hart, late Inspector- General of Chinese Maritime Customs, subscribed for by the community, was erected on the Bund near the Customs House in 1913. The statue is nine feet in height and stands on a granite pedestal eight feet high. The principal buildings in the French Concession are the Municipal Hall and the Consulate. In 1914 a new building for the Cercle Sportif Francais was thrown open to the members of the club and their friends, the more humble pavilion having given place to a handsome two- storied edifice. So popular has the Club become that in December, 1923, M. Wilden, the Consul-General for France, inaugurated the building of a new home for it by cutting the first sod in Verdun Gardens. A bronze statue of Admiral Protet, who was killed when directing an attack on Nan-yao on 17th May, 1862, stands in front of the Municipal Hall. The Public Markets of the French Concession are large and well built and are perfect as regards sanitary arrangements. An efficient tram service is maintained in both Settlements. The Shanghai Tramway Co.'s statistics for 1922 show that over a system covering but 17.765 route miles and 25.825 track miles no fewer than 126,684,226 passengers were carried. This extraordinary figure of over 19,500 passengers per route mile per day is believed to be unequalled in the world.
A small but well laid-out and admirably kept Public Garden was formed about 1868 on land recovered from the river in front of the British Consulate. It has been considerably extended in area by reclaiming the foreshore, and a further extension of five and a half mow by diverting the Soochow Creek was completed in 1905. A general Public Garden, intended for Chinese, eight mow in extent, by the bank of the Soochow Creek, was opened in December, 1890. A Park measuring 364 ft. by 216 ft. is laid out in Hongkew. The Public Recreation Ground has also been thoroughly drained, turfed and laid out, in spaces not devoted to sport, with flower-beds. A large extent of ground near Jessfield has been converted into a decorative park and botanical garden.
Immense sums have been wasted in various attempts to drain the Settlements, principally from the want of skilled direction; but the great difficulties in this matter arising from the low-lying and level nature of the ground have now been fairly overcome, though very much work of this nature has still to be undertaken in the recently-acquired area. The Settlements are well provided with telephonic fire-alarms. The desire of the Municipal Councils to keep the monopoly in their own hands retarded for many years the inauguration of waterworks, but a public company now furnishes a continuous supply of filtered water at moderate rates, and so successful has it been that the original capital has been more than doubled. The acquisition of this undertaking by the Municipality has been approved in principle. A separate system of waterworks for the French Concession has been inaugurated, and Chinese waterworks, to supply the native city, were completed in September, 1899. The electric light was introduced in 1882, and arc lamps are erected on all the principal thoroughfares and wharves. In 1893 the Municipality purchased the property and business of the Electric Company, but the administration of the Electric Light Department has not given entire satisfaction. The French Municipality has an excellent electric light service, and the native Bund is lighted by a Chinese Electric Light Company.