Directory_and_Chronicle_1881 — Page 326

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SHANGHAI,

Society has a good hall and well furnished library, and having latterly been conducted on liberal principles is well supported by the community The other public institutions may be enumerated as, a Subscription Library containing about 10,000 volumes, a branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, with the nucleus of a Museum, a Sailors' Home, a Polytechnic Institution fo Chinese, a Seamen's Library and Museum, a well sup. plied Gymnasium, a Wind Instrument Society, which gives a series of weekly concerts in the Public Gardens during the summer months, a Race Club, possessing a course of a mile and a quarter, a Country Club on the Bubbling Well Roa 1, a Parsee, and a Portugues Club, also Pony Paper Hunt, Cricket, Rifle, Racket, and various other Clubs for recreation. The last named owns a building containing two splendid Courts, Bowling Green, Tennis Lawn, etc. There are ten or eleven Masonic bodies, with over 500 members. In 1876 a District Grand Lodge for North China was constituted, with Shanghai as its head-quarters.

There are four Docks at Shanghai, the one at Tunkadoo, opposite the city, having a length of 380 feet over all with a depth at spring tides of 21 feet; the Old Dock at Hongkew is 400 feet long and 18 feet deep at springs, and the New Dock at Pootung at the lower end of the harbour measures 450 feet on the blocks with a depth at high water springs of about 21 feet. All steamers and most sailing vessels now discharge and load at the various public and private wharves. The premises of the Associated Wharf Company has a frontage of about three-quarters of a mile. The Chinese have an Arsenal and shipbuilding establishment at Kaon Chung-mow, a short distance above the city. The Great Northern Telegraph Company's cable was laid to Shanghai in 1871, and there are now two lines of communication with Europe. The Eastern Extension Company has an agency for the receipt of messages. A railway constructed by a foreign company was opened to Woosung in June, 1876, but after running for sixteen months it was purchased and taken up by the Chinese Authorities. During the short time it was running the passenger traffic alone covered the working expenses, leaving sufficient profit to pay a small dividend. In 1877 the property of the Shang- hai Steam Navigation Company, a foreign association owning the principal lines of steamers trading to the Yangtsze anl Northern poris, was bought by the Chinese Government, acting through the China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company, for the su u of two million tarls. The property then taken over consisted of about fifteen steamers, a dock, and extensive wharves and godowns in the French Settlement and at Hongkow.

The hotel accommodation of Shanghai was formerly, like that of Hongkong and Yokohama, of the most miserable description, but by the opening of the "Central" and the re-buildin of the "Astor House" in 1876-77, it is now in this respect unexcelled by any port in the East. There are three daily newspapers, the North China Daily News, morning, and the Shanghai Courier and Shanghai Mercury, evening, also two weeklies, the North China Herald and the Celestial Empire. There are two native daily papers; one of them, the Shun-pao, sold at the price of eight cash, equal to a farthing and a half, has a very large circulation; the other is the organ of the officials. In one matter, that of Postal accommodation, Shanghai is incon- veniently over-supplied, there being British, French, American, Japanese, Local, and Customs Post-offices. It is hoped that the Chinese Government may soon establish a general postal departinent in connection wisa the International Union, to be under the control of the Foreign Customs, or that failing this the other Authorities may consent to all correspondence passing through either the British or Local Offices. All foreign hongs and even private house to give themselves fancy Chinese names, by which only are they known to the natives. The system is, however, found to have its conveniences.

The currency of Shanghai is the tael of silver, cast into "shoes" of fifty taels, more or less. The foreign banks issue notes of the value of five tals and upwards. Sinaller transactions are conducted in clean Mexican dollars and copp r cash. There are seven foreign and innumerable native banks in the Settlement.

Shanghai is the great emporium for the trade of the Yaugtsze and Northern ports and to a consid able extent for Japan. The export of Tea from 1846 to 1850

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