Directory_and_Chronicle_1909 — Page 922

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SHANGHAI

history till the time of the Mongol Empire. We find at various periods from after Han downwards that K'wenshan, Changshu, Kiating, etc., were constituted into separate Hsiens, and that in the year 1292 Shanghai was likewise erected into a separate district, and placed under Sungkiang-fu, which itself had only fifteen years previously been divided from Kiahsing-fu, now in the province of Chekiang. Prior to that it had been made a Customs station on account of its favourable position for trade, but its growth had been slow, and for centuries the chief trade of the lower district had been con- centrated at the mouth of the Liu Ho, now an insignificant creek which, passing T'ait- sang, joins the Yangtze some twenty-five miles above Woosung.

With the silting up of the Liu Ho and its eventual extinction as a navigable channel, largely brought about apparently by the opening of the Hwangpu before alluded to, Shanghai became the principal shipping port of this region; and such it had been for some centuries when it was visited in 1832 by Mr. H. H. Lindsay, head of the late firm of Lindsay and Co., accompanied by the Rev. Chas. Gutzlaff, in the Lord Amherst, with a view to opening up trade, and from that time begins its modern history. Mr. Lindsay in his report of the visit says that he counted upwards of four hundred junks passing inwards every day for seven days, and found the place possessed commodious wharves and large warehouses. 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 hsien (district) city of Paoshan. On the 19th, after a slight resistance, the force gained possession of Shanghai, the officials and a large proportion of the inhabitants having fled the previous evening, although great preparations had been made for the defence, 409 pieces of cannon being taken possession of by the British. The people, however, rapidly returned and business was resumed. The same force afterwards captured Chapoo and Chinkiang, after which the fleet having blockaded the Imperial Canal, and anchored opposite to Nanking, the treaty of Nan- king was signed, and the ports of Swatow, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo and Shanghai were opened to trade. The city was evacuated on the 23rd June. 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.

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, since 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. 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 an English Church was built, and on 21st November the foundation of the Roman Catholic Cathedral at Tungkadoo was laid. The French were in 1819 granted the ground between the city walls and the British Settlement 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 westward to the Ningpo Joss House, a mile from the river. Negotiations were instituted for an extension of the Concession to Sicawei, a village chiefly occupied by the Jesuits and their converts, situated at the end of the French Municipal road and five miles from the French Bund, but in this the French were only partially successful, a small extension as far as the Old Cemetery being granted them in 1899. 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 nearly eight miles on the left bank of the river. Including the Creeks there are now fifteen miles of the Settlement with water frontage.

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The last land assessment was made in 1907, but was not completed except for the Central District in time for publication in the Report, or for the whole collection to be made on the new values. On land in the Central District the new assessment was Tls. 77,295,106. This, after deducting twenty per cent., shows an increase of 521% over the previous value of Tls.40,184,000. The Hongkew District was assessed in 1903 at Tls.

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