Directory_and_Chronicle_1890 — Page 550

SHANGHAI.

The most northerly of the five ports opened to foreign trade by the British Treaty of Nanking, is situate at the extreme south-east corner of the province of Kiang-su, in latitude 31.15 north, and longitude 121.29 east of Greenwich, at the junction of the rivers Hwang-po and Woosung (the latter called by foreigners the Soochow Creek), about twelve miles above the village of Woosung, where their united waters debouch into the estuary of the Yangtsze. The soil is alluvial and the country perfectly flat, the nearest eminence that can be called a hill being distant about nineteen miles. The river opposite the city and foreign settlements, once a narrow canal, was, some eighteen years ago, 1,800 feet broad at low water, but has been rapidly narrowing till it is now only 1,200 feet. The Soochow Creek, which was, judging by old records, at one time at least three miles across, has now a breadth of only a hundred yards. The average water on the bar at Woosung at high water springs is nineteen feet, the greatest depth of late years being twenty-three feet. The bar is the cause of heavy loss to shipowners and merchants through the detention of ocean steamers. After repeated efforts to induce the Chinese authorities to deepen it, a dredger was built for the purpose several years ago, but was only brought into use at Woosung last year. There is now, however, so:ne hope that the "heaven sent barrier," as the Chinese Authorities called it, will at last be removed.

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Shanghai-the name means " upper sea or "near the sea"-became a hsien or third rate city in the fourteenth century, and the walls, which are three and a half miles in circuit, with seven gates, were erected at the time of the Japanese invasion, in the latter part of the sixteenth century. It had been an important seat of trade for many centuries before the incursion of foreigners. It was captured by the British forces on 19th June, 1842.

The ground selected by Captain Balfour, the first British Consul, for a Settle- ment for his nationals, lies about half a mile north of the city walls, between the Yang-king-pang and Soochow Creeks, and extends backward from the river to a ditch connecting the two, called the Defence Creek, thus forming what may be called an island, a mile square. The port was formally declared open to trade on the 17th November, 1843. The French subsequently settled on the ground between the city walls and the British Concession, and in exchange for help rendered in driving out the rebels who had seized the city in 1853, got a grant of the land extending for about a mile to the south between the city walls and the river. They have since by purchase extended the bounds of the Concession westward to the "Ningpo Joss house," a mile from the river. Later on the Americans rented land immediately north of Soochow Creek, in the district called Hongkew, so that the ground now occupied by foreigners extends for about four miles on the left bank of the river. The land in the British Settlement was assessed in November, 1882 at Tls. 10,340,650, that in Hongkew at Tls. 3,550,660, an advance since 1880 of seventy per cent. The value, especially in Hongkew, may now be estimated very much higher. The assessed value of the land in the French Concession was Tls. 2,306,677 in 1885. The Chamber of Commerce in 1882 valued the lands in the three Settlements at Tls. 24,355,000 and the merchandise in stock at Tls. 32,645,000, together equal to fourteen and a quarter millions sterling. The British and French Concessions are now practically all built over, and the vacant spaces in Hongkew are being rapidly covered. Most of the land along the outside roads and at Pootung, on the opposite bank of the river, is now also rented by foreigners, but natives have recently been considerable purchasers of landed property within the Settlements. All ground belongs nominally to the Emperor of China, but is rented in perpetuity, a tax of