Directory_and_Chronicle_1924 — Page 787

SHANGHAI

INSTITUTIONS

717

Among the institutions of the place may be mentioned the Shanghai Volunteer Corps, composed of members of all nationalities, under the command of Col. R. Marr Johnson. It consists of 63 officers and 1,131 other ranks, made up as follow:-Staff 17, Light Horse 130, Artillery 80, Maxim Company 113, Engineer Company 28, “A”

Company (British) 71, "B" Company (British) 49, Customs Company 57, American Company 114, Portuguese Company 105, Japanese Company 95, Chinese Company 121, Shanghai Scottish Company 92, Italian Company 28, Reserve 135, Maritime Company 77. These numbers are exclusive of the Medical Staff and the Band. On the declaration of war by China on Germany and Austria-Hungary, the companies drawn from the subjects of those countries were disbanded. Originally formed in 1861, the Volunteer Force gradually went to decay, until the fear of attack after the massacre at Tientsin in 1870 caused its revival with considerable vigour. It again dwindled in numbers, but a re-organisation under the late Major Holliday proved successful, and in 1900, during the Boxer crisis, the membership of 300 was more than trebled and included a Naval Company, since disbanded. A separate Company of Volunteers, under the order of the French Consul-General, was formed in May, 1897. The Fire Brigade consisted until 1919 of 42 foreign volunteers under chief officer M. W. Pett, with a paid depart- mental engineer, and a staff of 187 native assistants, and was pronounced to be one of the most efficient volunteer brigades in the world. In 1919, however, owing to a misunderstanding, the volunteer members tendered their resignations, which were accepted, and as from April the Brigade became a purely professional organisation. Owing to the increased number of fires an independent brigade for the French Settlement was formed in April, 1908. Stimulated by these examples, no doubt, the Shanghai native city fire-brigade was reorganised in 1920. A substantial new building on the Nantao Road was inaugurated as a fire-station in December, and modern engines and equipment were purchased by public subscription. There is a Public Health Laboratory at which bacteriological investigations and chemical analyses are carried out, vaccine lymph is prepared, and the Pasteur treatment of rabies under- taken. The Settlements are well provided with hospitals. In addition to the large General Hospital, a four-storied block on the northern bank of the Soochow Creek, to which extensions have been added recently, there is the Victoria Nursing Home, presented by the community as a Jubilee Memorial and enlarged in 1913, with a separate house for maternity cases, and mental wards and an efficient English nursing staff available for outside attendance; and also a large isolation hospital for infectious cases, native and foreign, all these being directly under Municipal control. A bungalow to be used as a sanatorium in connection with the Nursing Home was purchased in 1907. There are likewise several private institu- tions under the control of the various missionary bodies. The other public institutions may be enumerated as the late Subscription Library, containing about 12,650 volumes, which was taken under the control of the Council in 1913 and is now a Public Library with free reading-room; 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, dance music in the Town Hall once a week, and Sunday concerts during the winter; a Race Club, possessing a course of a mile and a quarter, which holds race meetings in May and November; a Country Club on the Bubbling Well Road; the Cercle Sportif Francaise; the Shanghai Club on the Bund; 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 sixteen Masonic bodies; with over 700 members. In 1876 a District Grand Lodge for North China was constituted under the Grand Lodge of England; and in 1902 the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts erected a China Province with a District Grand Lodge under a District Deputy Grand Master, both having their headquarters in Shanghai.

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 spring tides; the New Dock at Pootung, at the lower end of the harbour, measures 450 feet on the blocks, 50 feet wide at bottom, and