Directory_and_Chronicle_1901 — Page 639

182

SHANGHAI

A

1900, during the China cirsis, the membership of 300 was more than doubled. This is exclusive of the Home Guard and Band. The infantry is armed with the Lee-Metford rifle. A separate Company of Volunteers under the order of the French Consul-General was formed in May, 1897. The Fire Brigade, which is entirely volunteer with a paid departmental Engineer, consists of four Engine and one Hook and Ladder Companies. It is pronounced to be one of the most efficient volunteer brigades in the world. There is a Hospital for foreigners, the building for which, although only completed in 1877, is already found inadequate and several additions have been made. Municipal Nursing Home with trained nurses also exists. There are also several Hospitals for natives and three Municipal Hospitals for infectious diseases and a Municipal Laboratory where vaccine and serum are prepared. The other public institutions may be enumerated as, a Subscription Library containing about 20,000 volumes, a branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, with the nucleus of a Museum, a Masonic Club, a Sailors' Home, a Polytechnic Institution for Chinese, a Seamen's Library and Museum, a Wind Instrument Band, paid by the Municipality, which gives concerts in the Public Gardens every day during the summer months, a Race Club, possessing a course of a mile and a quarter, a Country Club on the Bubbling Well Road, Parsee, Portuguese, and Customs Clubs, also Pony Paper Hunt, Cricket, Rifle, Yacht, Baseball, Racquet, Golf, Skating, Football, Swimming and various other Clubs, Philharmonic and Choral Societies, English and French Amateur Dramatic Societies, and other institutions for amusement and recreation. 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.

INDUSTRIES

There are five Docks at Shanghai. The one at Tungkadoo, opposite the city, has 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; Messrs. Boyd & Co's. New Dock at Pootung, at the lower end of the harbour, measures 450 feet on the blocks, 50 feet wide at bottom and 134 at top, is 80 feet wide at entrance between pierheads, with a depth at high water springs of 22 feet; the works connected with this dock cover an area of 16 acres. Farnham's "Cosmopolitan " Dock, on the Pootung side about a mile below harbour limits, is 560 feet long on blocks, and 82 feet wide at entrance. A Company was formed in 1896 to build a fifth and larger dock, termed the Oriental Dock which has been amatgamated with Farnham & Co., Ld. All steamers and most sailing vessels now discharge and load at the various public and private wharves. The premises of the Associated Wharf Companies have a frontage of about three-quarters of a mile. The Chinese Government has an Arsenal, Dock, and shipbuilding establishment at Kaou Chang Miao, a short distance above the native city. It commenced as a small rifle factory in 1867. The Great Northern Telegraph Company's cable was laid to Shanghai in 1871, and that of the Eastern Extension Company in 1884, there being now three distinct lines of communication with Europe. An overland line to Tientsin was opened in December, 1881, subsequently extended to Peking, and in 1894 connected with the Russian land lines through Siberia to Europe. There is also a line west to Kashgar and south as far as Laokay on the Yunnan border, there connecting with the French Tonkin lines and to Bhamo, connecting with the Burmah line. During the operations in 1900, the Allied Powers found it necessary to be independent of the Chinese landlines, and submarine cables were laid connecting Shanghai with Kiao- chow, Weihaiwei, Chefoo, and Port Arthur. A railway constructed by a foreign company was opened to Woosung in June, 1876, but after running for sixteent 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. Towards the close of 1895 consent was given by the Throne for the construction by the provincial authorities of a line of railway from Shanghai to Soochow, a distance of about eighty miles. This is now in course of construction, the portion between Shanghai and Woosung having been opened to traffic on 1st September 1898. The extension of the line from the present Woosung terminus, across the creek into Woosung proper, is now being made, the final terminus to be Princess Wharf, immediately adjoining the old forts. The Shanghai terminus is too far from the Settlement to permit of the lines being of much use in handling cargo from Woosung. The line is to be extended to Chinkiang and Nanking. A scheme for Tramways in the settlements has often been put forward, but so late as 1896 was

was refused sanction by the

•