Directory_and_Chronicle_1895 — Page 515

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SHANGHAI.

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, an effort was made to cope with the evil by dredging, but after a few months' work it was found that the experiment must prove ineffective, and in September, 1892, it was abandoned as useless. Funds have now been promised to obtain the opinion of a European expert,

Shanghai-the name means "upper sea" or near the sea"-is mentioned as existing in 249 B.C. It was a place of some importance in the eleventh century, when it was made a Customs station, and became a hsien or third rate city in the fourteenth century. 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, and even two thousand years ago was celebrated as the seat of an extensive cotton manu- facturing industry. It was visited in 1832 by Mr. H. H. Lindsay, head of the late firm of Lindsay & Co., and the Rev. Chas. Gutzlaff, in the Lord Amherst, with a view of openiug up trade. Mr. Lindsay says he counted upwards of four hundred junks passing inwards every day for seven days and found it possessed commodious wharves and large ware- houses. Three years later it was visited by the Rev. Dr. Medhurst, who confirmed the account given by Mr. Lindsay. On the 13th June, 1842, a British Fleet under Vice- Admiral Sir William Parker, and a military force of 4,000 men under Sir Hugh Gough, captured the Woosung Forts, which mounted 175 guns, and took the city of Paoshun. On the 19th after a slight resistance they gained possession of Shanghai, the officials and a large proportion of the inhabitants having led the previous evening, although great preparations had been made for the defence, 406 pieces of cannon being taken possession of by the British. The people, however, rapidly returned and business was resumed. The same force afterwards captured Chinkiang and Hankow, when the treaty was arranged, and the ports of Swatow, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo and Shanghai were opened to trade. The city was evacuated on the 23rd June.

The ground selected by Captain Balfour, the first British Consul, for a Settlement 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 milo square. The port was formally declared open to trade on the 17th November, 1843. Some years were occupied in draining and laying out the ground, which was mostly a marsh with numerous ponds and creeks. The foreigners in the meantime lived at Namtao, a suburb between the city and the river, the British Consulate being in the city. In two years a few houses were built in the Settlement, and by 1849 most foreigners had taken up their residence in it. By that time twenty-five firms were established, and the foreign residents numbered a hundred, including seven ladies. In that year the English Church was built, and on 21st November the foundation of the Roman Catholic Cathedral at Tongkadoo was laid. The French were in 1849 granted the ground between the city walls and the British Concession on the same terms, 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 west- ward 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 1890 at Tls. 12,397,810, and that in Hongkew at Tls. 4,806,448; in 1882, at Tls. 10,340,650 and Tls. 3,550,660, and in 1880 at Tls. 6,118,265 and Tĺs. 1,945,325 respectively, an advance since 1880 of one hundred and thirteen per cent. 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 land in the three Settlements at Tls. 24,355,000 and the merchandise in stock at Tls. 32,045,000, together equal to fourteen and a quarter millions sterling. Both have been greatly increased in value since that date and the boundaries of Hongkew have been enlarged. 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 fifteen hundred copper cash, equal to about a dollar and a quarter per mow, being paid to the Government annually. It was bought from the original