Directory_and_Chronicle_1941 — Page 601

和怡 E Wo

YOCHOW-SHASI

DIRECTORY

JARDINE, MATHESON & Co., LTD., Mer-,

chants-

Chen Sung Tsun, agent

PU CHI STEAMSHIP Co.-Cable Ad:

0361

Hong Sui Dong, agent

會初復美大

Tu me fuh jso wei

REFORMED CHURCH MISSION Yochow

City; Cable Ad: Evrechurch

Rev. E. A. Beck

A363

John D. Beck

Beck and Wife furlough)

(On

Rev. & Mrs. Sterling W. Whitener

Miss G. B. Hoy, secretary

Miss A. E. Traub (On furlough)

Miss M. E. Myers

Rev. & Mrs. T. F. Hilgeman (On-

furlough)

SHASI

市沙 Sha-si

.

Shasi (the "market on the sands") roughly 900 miles from the sea, is one of the ports opened to foreign trade under the Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895) the official declaration of the opening being dated the 1st October, 1896. The port is about 85 miles below Ichang. It is reclairued from the river by a magnificent system of dykes and canals. The district suffers periodically from the flooding of the Yangtze. On July, 4th, 1935, the river rose to a height of 35. 7 feet, the highest level in the history of Shasi, and nearly plunged over the dyke into the low-lying roofs 100,000 inhabi- tants. Many lives were lost in surrounding districts and whole towns disappeared under the waters. On the 9th and 10th May, 1898, a serious anti foreign riot occurred at Shasi. The Customs Office and the residence of the Commissioner, the Customs boats, the premises of the China Merchants' Company and their hulk, the office of the Foreign Board, the Japanese Consulate, the premises occupied by the native agents of Messrs. Butterfield & Swire and Messrs. Jardine, Matheson & Co., and a number of newly-erected Chinese houses were burnt by the mobs, kerosene oil being used to feed the conflagration, and the foreign residents were driven out of the port, narrowly escaping with their lives. The Custom-house was re opened on the 1st July of the same year. In August, 1898, an area 3,800 Chinese feet in length, by 800 to 1,200 in breadth, lying along the riverside below the town, was assigned to Japan as a Japanese Concession but was not developed and much of the land on which it would have stood has since undergone erosion. The British Consulate was withdrawn in January, 1899, British interests being placed under the care of the Consul at Ichang whereas the outburst of Sino-Japanese hostilities in August, 1937 necessitated a com- plete evacuation of the Japanese Consul and his staff and up-to-now their probable return is very remote. A telephone service was introduced in March, 1921. A motor bus service between Shasi and Hankow was completed in 1933, while bus services also run to Ichang in the west. Motor buses now leave Shasi daily at about 7 a.m. and reach Hankow soon after 4 p.m. on the same day. The trip by steamer from Hankow, to Shasi takes from two to three days, by bus nine hours and by air oue and half hours! The distance by water is nearly 300 miles and by air only one half as great, the numerous serpentine curves of the river being avoided by the plane. The air-mail and passenger service between Hankow and Chungking via Shasi and Ichan was commenced in Aprial 1931. Flights are made three times a week. A private company supplies the Shasi public with electricity. The Hankow Press Packing Co., Ltd. (Shasi Branch) started operations in September 1929, while the Shasi Cotton