Shanghai

“ From the fine parade along the river,—the Bund it is called,—with its turfed slopes, Shanghai is alive, right away to the men-of-war, local steamers, and launches. The streets are full, even crowded, with passers-by and rickshas—the original "Pull-man car of Shanghai." On the Bund the business is performed, and its occupants are indeed busy. It is a wonderful sight for the stranger from Europe, who expects things to be Chinese-like. ”

“ Bless my stars, what a crow ! Shanghai sent up such a perfect pagan and laudamus—such a trumpet blast of triumph, that my soul fairly snorted in me. Duns !—I could have fought an army of them! Plainly, Shanghai was of the opinion that duns only came into the world to be kicked, hanged, bruised, battered, choked, walloped, hammered, drowned, clubbed!
Returning indoors, when the exultation of my victory over the dun had a little subsided, I fell to musing over the mysterious Shanghai. ”

“ Shanghai is a gay, bright clean place, where upwards of 4000 Europeans reside, the majority being British. These claim for it the title of the Paris of the East, and the shops and broad well-kept streets make it worthy of the name. You have, too, the picturesque element of Chinese life without the accompanying dirt and squalor, for the typical Chinese town with its filthy narrow streets is relegated to the back of the settlement. All life centres on the Bund, which we and everyone else are always passing up and down ”

“ There are all sorts of interesting things to be seen in Shanghai, but it takes time, and the only other place of special interest we saw was the old native city, just the same picturesque, dirty, crowded spot that it was hundreds of years ago, surrounded by its three-and-a-half-mile wall, of which the gates are still shut at night. ”

“ Shanghai shares with Hankau the title of head of the railway system; that is to say one is the New York and the other the Chicago of the land. There is no computing what the future trade will be at Shanghai. The climate is not much improved on the damp sea-level misery which one experiences at Hongkong, Canton, and Amoy, but there are brave hearts in Shanghai, and the noblest of women who will endure any physical torture so long as they know that they are doing their duty in not deserting the advanced firing line of civilization and philanthropy. ”

“ NANKING.
ANKING borrows its interest to-day from the glories of the past and the promise of the future. Except as the centre of Government for the two river provinces of Kiangsu and Anhwei, the former of which contains Shanghai, the city is of little importance. ”

“ Having seen the Chinese at several points before reaching Hong-Kong, that city with its English environment did not impress me greatly. Canton seemed an unrelated place, a kind of a by-play. The Shanghai I knew was modern.
As we approached Peking, we caught a glimpse of the Great Wall, a massive gray bulk, with the immense corner tower, which produced a feeling of awe, standing as though it were an entrance into a city of mystery—a walled town of over twenty miles in circumference which was virtually the product of four walled cities in one. ”

“ From every point of view Shanghai is doomed. However, in our scheme of development of China, Shanghai has certain claims for our consideration which may prove its salvation as an important city. The curse of Shanghai as a world port for future commerce is the silt of the Yangtze which fills up all its approaches rapidly every year. This silt, according to the estimation of Mr. Von Heidenstam, Engineer-in-chief of the Whangpoo Conservancy36 Board, is a hundred million tons a year and is sufficient to cover an area of forty square miles ten feet deep. ”

“ On the Bund lights appeared. The little paper lanterns of rickshaws bobbed and flitted everywhere. Mark turned and walked aimlessly toward the Soochow bridge.
There was a padding of feet behind him, and a tolerably neat Chinese in a faded blue coat and linen trousers appeared at his side.
"Me come velly click hotel-side," this person announced. "Melican man no go Shanghai all alone night-time. No see Shanghai here; here all Melican Blitish man. No see Shanghai till see Chinee city. Me velly hon'able plecious guide." ”

“ Shanghai has immense internal communication with all the central parts of China; it is situated in the richest and most productive part of the country, and the adjacent district has been called the Chinese Arcadia. The country is one fertile flat, occasionally subject to ravages by inundations, but generally drained and cultivated with great care. In some parts, the land, lying below the level of the rivers, is only maintained by strong and extensive embankments. The whole country is covered with hamlets and villages, and cotton is cultivated in great quantities. ”

“ Shanghai is the city of great international commerce in the extreme Orient. The French, English and Americans possess concessions which they rent from the Chinese Government. Each concession has its own Consul.
All the first storey of our hotel is put to our disposal, each apartment has its own bathroom. I had to lock myself in to avoid the native merchants, who enter without knocking at the door, all smiles and making funny little bows. ”

“ Social Shanghai. Probably no place in the East has been so prolific in the production of periodicals as Shanghai, where the population is of so unique and cosmopolitan a character and the interests represented are so varied. Papers in profusion, both weekly and monthly, have seen the light of day. Many of them, after a brief and hopeless struggle for existence, have passed into the limbo of things forgotten. ”

“ Entering the city through the east gate, on whose walls, by way of example to the multitude, are suspended in sacks and wicker-work numerous skulls of rebels and murderers, on whom justice has been done, we find ourselves in China street, one of the principal streets of Shanghai, and in which are most of the best class of native shops. It is however no wider or cleaner than the other streets of the city, and might be termed a "lane" with far more propriety than a street. ”

“ Shanghai has well earned for itself the title of the 'Model Settlement,' and may therefore be taken as a pre-eminent type of all other settlements of a similar or kindred order in China. Except in the matter of political sovereignty, Shanghai is to all intents and purposes as essentially a British city as Hong Kong or Singapore. ”

“ The streets of Shanghai proper are none of them more than ten feet in breadth. Some are even considerably narrower, and the tottering, tumble-down dwellings, the majority built of wood, bend forward on either side until they nearly touch overhead. The thoroughfares are thus always, even on the brightest day, in a state of semi-darkness. ”

“ Shanghai exerts a direct and result-breeding influence on fifty to seventy-five million native minds, and an indirect influence on all China. How many scores of fair-minded, straightforward merchants, how many thousands of scattered missionaries and teachers will it take, think you, to counteract that influence?
China, grappling with the problem of decay, fighting desperately against an evil which the most nearly Christian of the Christian nations has fastened on her, looks westward for enlightenment, and sees—Shanghai. ”

“ Shanghai is an example of one of the curious anomalies which have been generated by the collision of Western progress with Eastern stagnancy. It presents, indeed, an astonishing phenomenon, a European city—not unfit to be the capital of many a European country—dumped down on a Chinese mud-flat. The mud-flat is still the property of China, who receives ground-rent from the foreigner who has spread his palatial mansions over it ”

“ Life is in a whirl at Shanghai. The river bund is crowded, and so is the long, winding Bubbling Well Road. The concessions are splendidly managed from a foreign point of view, and vie with each other in public spirit. The Chinese, however, feel greater warmth for Hongkong, which gives them representation on the council. In Shanghai there are mixed courts, consular courts, an American Superior Court, and Chinese courts. The Chinese are planning for the day when they will try all Chinese offenders. There is an imposing cathedral, and a modern Venetian style railway station. ”

“ Despite the filth and many disagreeable things to be encountered in a walk or ride through a city like Shanghai, it is one of the most interesting places imaginable in which to spend an hour or two on a summer morning. ”

“ The native walled city of Shanghai stands to the south of the foreign settlement, and is separated from it by the French concession ground, and by a canal which here sweeps round and forms with Soo-chow Creek and the river a water boundary for the entire English ground. The latter, on its western side, supports a Chinese population of over 50,000 souls; but inside the walls of the Chinese city, in an area measuring little over a mile long by three-fourths of a mile in breadth, and in a densely crowded suburb on the water's edge close by, about 130,000 inhabitants reside. ”

“ Shanghai is now connected with Peking by a telegraph, which will doubtless before long be supplemented by a railway. Some years ago a short railway was laid down between Shanghai and Woosung by some foreigners who wished to force the pace at which China was progressing. But the time had not come when such a step would be adopted by the Chinese, and after a few weeks' existence the plant was bought by the native authorities and shipped to Formosa, where it has since been allowed to rust and rot. The climate of Shanghai is essentially unhealthy. ”

“ And they were going to Shanghai—to Shanghai, with sycee silver in their pockets and the treasure at their feet. And Ping-Pong was safe asleep in a white crib at the Mission, Mark thought complacently. ”

“ Shanghai must be a place of immense commercial importance, not only as regards the internal traffic of the country, but also in respect to its foreign commerce, or at least its trade with the remoter parts of China, and even with Siam and Cochin-China. It is said to rank second only to Canton in commercial importance, particularly as the junks belonging to the southern provinces are prohibited from trading further north than this city, which therefore, in a certain degree, enjoys a monopoly. ”

“ But to enter into all the particularities of Chinese life which attract the attention at Shanghai as in other cities, would be to compile an account of China and her customs.
The points of real importance to be considered in connection with Shanghai, which is fast becoming the commercial centre of Chinese exports, are the extent to which foreigners have an [Pg 650] influence on the people in modifying their habits, increasing their knowledge, and dispelling their prejudices. ”

“ Shanghai has always been able to hold its own as the great Chinese emporium of foreign trade. It was therefore with feelings of profound interest that I for the first time beheld the splen- did foreign settlement that stands there on the banks of the Wong-poo, at a spot which about sixty years ago was a mere swamp dotted with a few fisher huts, and inhabited by a miser- able semi-aquatic sort of Chinese population. ”

“ Thus there has gradually grown up around and upon the concessions a large Chinese city, believed by many to contain almost as large a population as the city within the walls. This is not incredible when we consider that the excesses of the Tae-Pings in Soo-Chow, a large city about thirty miles from Shanghai, have driven vast numbers of its inhabitants to the latter place, which, being already densely crowded, has overflowed its walls, and, as the presence of Europeans has made Shanghai, as it were, a city of refuge for the exiles, they have naturally crowded around the foreign settlement. ”

“ Most of my readers are aware that in spite of a host of troubles (not the least of which was the Taiping rebellion, or rather, I believe, the attack upon the city by the short-sword or dagger rebels) Shanghai has continued to advance steadily, and has always maintained its position as the greatest emporium of China. It must be at the same time borne in mind that this commercial success is, in some measure at least, attributable to the European customs' administration which was inaugurated at this city in 1843, and which now extends its ramifications to all the open ports of the Empire. ”

“ One is accustomed to think of the Chinese as quiet, slow-going people, but the traffic of Shanghai is so great4 that I know no place where you are more conscious of business bustle. The crowd in the streets is almost entirely composed of men and boys, so that it is hard to imagine where room is found for the women and children, even the balconies and shops as well as streets being packed with men. ”

“ The streets are crowded with people, and the stores filled with purchasers, most of the merchants in that section of the city being Europeans. The attractive buildings on the Bund do not comprise all of the good buildings of Shanghai, for some of the homes, built of red and gray-colored brick, two and three stories in height, are good to look at. Then there are sidewalks to the Shanghai streets, which are well paved with asphalt and granite blocks, and these are kept clean. Many churches are to be seen. Schools are frequently met with, and parks have been placed at convenient sections ”

“ In 1849 a concession was granted to the French, but as late as 1850 there were only one hundred and fifty-seven foreign residents, and twenty-five foreign firms doing business. Shanghai is distinctively a commercial city, with a flat location, no background, and an artificial foreground of solid rows of business buildings. ”