Directory_and_Chronicle_1918 — Page 795

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one of the biggest single jobs undertaken by the local Public Works Department. Avenue Edward VII., from The Bund to Thibet Road, is a thoroughfare of consider- able width, with spacious foot paths. All the roads leading off the new avenue, on both sides, have rounded corners with a wide sweep, and the engineers, in planning the road, have made every arrangement possible for the accommodation of extensive traffic. In the straightening of the road the windings of the former creek are abolished. It may be mentioned that there is no tram line on Avenue Edward VII, the French tram company having removed the loop section which ran from the French Bund along the old Quai de Yang-king-pang and through Rue Montauban to Rue du Consulat. Instead, a double line is run from the Rue du Montauban corner down Rue du Consulat to The Bund. A new delimita- tion of the French Settlement was also undertaken during 1914, and the French author- ities were given full control of the roads that have been built beyond the old boundary. Six new bridges were erected in 1901 to connect the extended Settlements. There are 50 bridges within the Settlements, the number having been considerably reduced

reduced owing to

owing to the demolition of the bridges the Yang-king-pang, and the Defence Creek. A new steel bridge over the mouth of the Soochow Creek was completed in 1908, replacing the wooden "Garden Bridge" erected in 1873. It has two equal spans of 171' 2", the width is 60 feet with a carriage-way of 36 feet 9 inches; the gradient of the ap- proaches is 1 in 30; the headway above high-water from 6′ 6′′ to 11".

There are several good driving roads extending into the country, two leading to Sicawei, a distance of about six miles, and one to Jessfield by the banks of the Soochow Creek, for five miles, with an extension measuring some thirteen miles to the extreme limits of the Shanghai hsein district and now called the Rubicon. A scheme for the construction of a road from Sicawei to the hills, eighteen miles, has been sanctioned, and marked out, but owing to official obstruction has not yet been commenced. Another broad thoroughfare, Yang- tzepoo Road, runs by the side of the river for five miles, which it is intended ultimately to extend to Woosung. The termini of Jessfield Road and Yangtzepoo Road now mark the limits in their separate directions of the Foreign Settlements. The land for a new road from Sicawei to Jessfield was acquired in 1905. Several other roads have been proposed, but although foreigners are prepared to pay high prices for the land the opposition of the officials has hitherto prevented their construction. Now, however, by the granting of the extension of the Settlements the Municipal Council has the right to build and police roads in certain adjacent districts. In 1916 the roads maintained by the Council measured 126 miles, and the footways 107 miles. At the time the Taipings approached Shanghai, some roads for the passage of artillery were made by the British military authorities at the expense of the Chinese Government, one of them extending for seventeen miles into the country; but, excepting those close to the Settlement, they have now been turned into ploughed fields. The foreshore in front of the Settlement has been reclaimed, raised, turfed, and planted with shrubs, and forms a spacious and delightful promenade. The trees planted some years ago having now attained a good height, and several more imposing buildings having been completed, the English and French Bunds form as magnificent a boulevard as any in the East.

Many foreign houses, some with several mow of garden ground, have been, and more are still being, erected near the outside roads, especially on the Bubbling Well, Sicawei, and Sinza Roads, which are the main outlets from the settlement, and from which most of the other roads branch off. These roads are planted with trees on both sides, forming fine avenues of five to six miles in length. Building activity of late years may be described as remarkable and unparalleled in the history of the port. The number of new buildings erected in 1914 totalled 8,824, in 1915, 6,892 and 6,767 in 1916 These included mills, godowns, shops, offices and Chinese and foreign residential premises. A small but well laid-out and admirably kept Public Garden was formed about 1868 on land recovered from the river in front of the British Consulate. It has been considerably extended in area by reclaiming the foreshore, and a further extension of five and a half mow by diverting the Soochow Creek was completed in 1905. A general Public Garden, intended for Chinese, eight mow in extent, by the bank of the Soochow Creek, was opened in December, 1890. A Park measuring 364 ft. by 216 ft. is laid out in Hongkew. The Public Recreation Ground has also been thoroughly drained, turfed and laid out, in Ispaces not devoted to sport, with flower-beds. A large extent of ground, boundaries not yet defined, has been acquired near Jessfield as the nucleus of a future decorative "park and botanical garden. It is proposed that there shall be a Wild Garden, consisting of woodlands, meadows, streams and lakes, a Botanic Garden, containing as large a

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