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BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

J.

No. MCCCXLI.

JULY 1927.

VOL. CCXXII.

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THE METAMORPHOSIS OF SHANGHAI.

BY LIEUT.-COLONEL JOHN JEFFREYS, D.S.O.

A FEBRUARY morning on the Whang-Pu, the air cold and bracing, a light misty rain falling, and the dull grey light of English winter - time. A sort of feel of London, as if Tilbury had been dropped in the Far East and become orientalised. But the languor and everlasting patience of the East are missing. On the river is all the bustle of the West. The long low warships lying moored, one close behind the other-British, American, French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese; the tugs, tenders, ocean-going transports, and liners; the junks with their great sails and heavy cumbrous lines, and the little sampans, with their crews packed below deck, calling to take you across the river, or to and from the ships lying out in the stream. Here, at a jetty, is a luxurious motor house-boat ready to carry its foreign owner after snipe,

VOL. CCXXII.-NO. MCCCXLI.

teal, goose, and woodcock. Or, perhaps, in these anxious days it is not the lure of the bird but the sight of the Chinese armies, lying one against the other, that will take him twenty or thirty miles up the river.

Tied up to another wharf are the newly arrived transports with British troops on board. Khaki-clad men, sent in haste from India for the defence of. Shanghai, fall of delighted enthusiasm at seeing this great new city, whistling and shouting to people on shore, who laugh and wave their hands in reply.

How long is it since an English regiment landed in Shanghai? There were Indian troops here in the Boxer rising, but no battalion of Englishmen. And the Boxer trouble was twenty-seven years ago! But here they are now-men from Gloucester and from Durham. And here in the ships must

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they for a few days remain, until billets or huts are prepared for them. But who in Shanghai knows how to billet a battalion, or how to quarter a brigade? "The Great War taught us! say those who already have the work in hand. "Were we not all through the Somme and Ypres and the Hindenburg Line, and do we not know the requirements of the British soldier ?

But till the men can be housed they must remain in the ships; and there let us leave them, to smoke and play "House" and sleep another night or two on deck, whilst we turn and take a glance at Shanghai: not the walled Chinese city which lies a few miles to the south, but the foreign town, which is here before us. A narrow strip of land along the left bank of the Whang-Pu, measuring less than thirty miles from the point where it leaves the river to its junction with the French concession and at no point extending more than five or six miles from the river. This is the International Settlement, and upon it is built the modern city of Shanghai. Governed and administered by the Municipal Council, with its five British, two American, and two Japanese members, an able and popular American chairman at its head, it is an independent city, neither Japanese, nor American, nor British. A wet marshy strip of land it used to be, the home of the whimbrel and the snipe.

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suitable place for the foreigner, thought the Chinaman when he conceded it to him! But where the muddy creek ran is now a tar macadam road, and where the rushes grew are flourishing jewellers' shops with plate-glass windows. Here is the Bund, stretching along the river bank, with the wharves and landing-stages on the one hand, and on the other the great Hong-Kong and Shanghai Bank, the Shanghai Club, with the longest bar in the world, the Consular buildings, hotels, smaller clubs, and offices. Leading away from the Bund we see Nanking Road, the Bond Street and Piccadilly of Shanghai, other crowded and prosperous streets, and the Avenue Edouard Sept, which is the boundary of French town. Everywhere are modern European buildings, interspersed with Chinese shops; excellent roads and broad pavements; rickshaws in thousands and motor - cars in hundreds ; crowded tram-cars and streets full of pedestrians. Chinese police in blue, with flat hats, or tall Sikhs, with their turbans, are at every corner, regulating the crowding traffic with their batons, or by the red and green warning lights displayed from posts in the centre of the cross-roads. Here and there also is a European, who has been specially enlisted in London or Dublin for the responsible and often dangerous task that falls to the lot of the Shanghai Municipal Police. And the flags! This is a city

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