Directory_and_Chronicle_1919 — Page 702

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SHANGHAI

retarded for many years the inauguration of waterworks, but a public company is now established, which furnishes a continuous supply of filtered water at moderate- rates, and so successful has it been that the capital has twice been increased and is now more than doubled. A separate system of waterworks for the French Concession has- been inaugurated, and Chinese waterworks, to supply the native city, were completed in September, 1899. The electric light was introduced in 1882, and arc lamps are erected on all the principal thoroughfares and wharves. In 1893 the Municipality purchased the property and business of the Electric Company, but the administration of the Electric Light Department has not given entire satisfaction. The French Municipality has an excellent electric light service, and the native Bund is lighted by a Chinese- Electric Light Company.

Shanghai can boast of several fine buildings of various and varied styles of architecture. The first English church, built in 1847, did not long exist, for in 1850 the- roof fell in. It was, however, patched up, and continued in use till 1862, when it gave way to a building professedly only temporary. On the 16th May, 1866, accordingly, the foundation-stone was laid of a new building which was opened for public worship in August, 1869. Although at the time considered extravagantly large, the congregation has already outgrown the accommodation. It possesses a fine organ, and a full and highly-trained choir. It is Gothic of the thirteenth century, according to the practice of the day, 152 feet long, 58 feet wide, and 54 feet from the floor to the apex of the nave. The structure was not completed, however, until 1892, when the spire was erected, the cross being placed on the top on the 4th October of that year. It attains- a total height of 16 feet and, like the body of the edifice, is built of red brick, with stone dressing. There is a Roman Catholic Church in the French Concession called St. Joseph's, built in 1862, and another in Hongkew known as the Church of the Sacred Heart. There are also the Union Church on the Soochow Creek, a church with spire and bells in Yunnan Road, belonging to the American Methodist Episcopal Mission, a chapel belonging to the London Mission, and two to the American Episcopalians, the church of St. Andrew, in Broadway,

Broadway, Hongkew,

Hongkew, which, besides serving as a Seamen's church, acts also as a chapel of ease to the Anglican Cathedral, besides several mission chapels for natives. The Jesuit Fathers have an extensive mission establishment and orphanages at Sicawei, where a mission has existed for over a hundred years. The present church was built in 1851. To this mission is attached a museum of natural history, etc., and an astronomical and meteorological observatory. In connection with the latter there is a time-ball on the French Bund. Under the direction of this institution, a complete system of meteorlogical observations, embracing the whole of the China Seas, is carried out. The Shanghai Club- until lately occupied a large and elaborate building at one end of the English Bund. It cost £42,000, and at that is said to have ruined three contractors.- It was opened in 1864 and passed through a varied and peculiar history, and finally, having in recent years been found too small for its membership, new and im posing premises were erected on the same site and opened in 1911. On the 22nd October- 1904, the foundation of a new German Club was laid by Prince Adelbert of Prussia, to replace the old Club Concordia. The new building is a large edifice, with some pretension to architectural display in German Renaissance style. It is, of course, now closed. The present buildings of the British Consulate and Supreme Court, at the other end of the Bund, were opened in 1872. Near them is a fine Masonic Hall recently partially re-built. Amongst the other conspicuous buildings may be mentioned those occupied by the Russo-Asiatic Bank, the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, the Eastern Extension and Great Northern Telegraph Companies, the Palace Hotel, Astor House Hotel, the new offices of the Chinese Mutual Life Insurance Company, Limited, and the Union and McBain Buildings. A large scheme for building offices and residential flats on the Nanking Road between Szechuan and Kiangse Roads has been put in hand by Mr. E. I. Ezra. The scheme includes the laying out of a new thoroughfare, the surrender of land at the narrowest portion of Nanking Road and the erection of five blocks of buildings in three years. The .Lyceum Theatre, situate in Museum Road, is a fair building seating 700 persons, opened in January, 1874, and extensively altered and improved during 1901 and again in 1906. A new Custom-house was completed in 1893 on the site of the old building on the Bund. It is in the Tudor style, of red brick with facings of green Ningpo stone, and has high pitched roofs covered with red French tiles. The buildings have a frontage on the Bund of 135 feet, and on the Hankow Road of 155 feet. In the centre of the main building a clock tower, supplied with a four-faced clock striking the Westminster