THE GATEWAY TO CHINA
[Illustration: MR. BAO ON LEFT, ONE OF THE THREE FOUNDERS OF THE
COMMERCIAL PRESS, WITH OTHER MEMBERS OF THE STAFF
(See chapter “_A Wizard Publishing House_”)]
THE
GATEWAY TO CHINA
PICTURES OF SHANGHAI
BY
MARY NINDE GAMEWELL
Author of “We Two Alone in Europe”
_ILLUSTRATED_
[Illustration]
NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
Fleming H. Revell Company
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
Copyright, 1916, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 17 N. Wabash Ave.
Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street
TO MY HUSBAND
PREFACE
Shanghai is a little world, where all China in miniature may be studied
at close range. Thither drift Chinese from every province in the
country, who for the most part in the new environment follow their
age-long customs and cherish their inherited traditions. But the city
is also remarkable for its rapid and constant changes. A member of
a local book-firm declared not long since, “We have never tried to
publish a guide to Shanghai because in six months it would be out of
date.” To an Occidental the chief fascination of this busy metropolis
lies in the curious commingling of things old and new, practices
ancient and modern, which meet one at every turn. More strikingly
than any other city in the Far East, Shanghai represents the Orient
in transition. To catch and portray some of these shifting scenes,
the following “Pictures” have been drawn, with the hope that they
may stimulate interest in China and awaken a new love and admiration
for the Chinese people. It need hardly be explained that no attempt
has been made at a complete study of the subjects described. This
is particularly true of the last chapter, where several phases of
missionary activity have been touched upon by way of illustration,
while societies and organizations doing an equally valuable work have
not been mentioned. The history of the Christian Literature Society,
for example, reads like a romance and it is a well-established fact
that its books had much to do in shaping the radical policy of the late
Emperor Kuang Hsü and the liberals of that period, which eventuated
in the dawn of progress and a New China. To all friends, Chinese and
foreign, whose suggestions and criticisms have helped make possible
this little book, warmest thanks are extended.
M. N. G.
METHODIST EPISCOPAL MISSION,
SHANGHAI, CHINA.
CONTENTS
I. EVOLUTION OF A CITY 13
II. CIVIC FEATURES 20
III. STREET RAMBLES 42
IV. THE LURE OF THE SHOPS 57
V. HOUSEKEEPING PROBLEMS 73
VI. SOMETHING ABOUT VEHICLES 91
VII. A PEEP INTO THE SCHOOLROOM 106
VIII. A WIZARD PUBLISHING HOUSE 127
IX. THE CHINESE CITY 140
X. CUSTOMS OLD AND NEW 155
XI. A TYPICAL SHANGHAI WEDDING 172
XII. FOREIGN PHILANTHROPIES 185
XIII. CHINESE SUCCESSES IN SOCIAL SERVICE 199
XIV. THE ROMANCE AND PATHOS OF THE
MILLS 217
XV. A PAGE FROM THE STORY OF PROTESTANT
MISSIONS 234
ILLUSTRATIONS
Mr. Bao on Left, One of the Three Founders
of the Commercial Press, with Other Members
of the Staff _Title_
Chinese Policemen Drawn up for Inspection 20
Some Shops on Nanking Road 58
High, Black Rickshas Outside the Foreign Settlement 92
Advertising Singer Sewing Machine Products 106
Miss Zee’s New School Building. Kindergarten
in the Rear 120
Chinese Composing Room 128
The Original Willow Pattern Tea House 140
A Modern Chevalier and His Happy Family 156
The Coffin in a Funeral Procession 160
School Girls in Gymnasium Drill 168
Rescued Child Just Brought to the Children’s
Refuge--Old Men at the Home of the Little
Sisters of the Poor 186
Rescued Kidnapped Children as They Were
Photographed for Advertisement in the
Chinese Daily Newspapers 200
On the Way to the Mill 218
Chinese Boy Scouts 234
Corner Stone of Boys’ Building, Y. M. C. A. 244
I
EVOLUTION OF A CITY
From time immemorial the Yangtsekiang has deposited at its mouth
quantities of silt borne downward from the far West on its mighty
yellow tide. Little by little, water gave place to mud flats, and
mud flats to green fields. On this alluvium a handful of fisher-folk
settled a thousand or so years ago, and from their straggling village
gradually evolved the Shanghai of today. Shanghai means “Mart on the
Sea,” but the city is now sixty miles inland. The Whangpoo River, a
branch of the Yangtse, that flows past it, has during the past fifty
years narrowed one-third, and only by constant dredging is the channel
kept open.
For many years the obscure fishing-station gave no promise of its
future greatness; but all things come to them that wait, and Shanghai’s
prosperity began when an official in charge of shipping and customs
was stationed there in 1075. Five hundred years later, the place had
blossomed out into a kind of Oriental Athens, celebrated for its
musicians, poets, prose writers, and statesmen. It gave birth, also, to
women of repute, praised far and wide as models of virtue and filial
piety. The city, like human beings, had its vicissitudes. Again and
again, it was infested by Chinese and Japanese pirates, swept by
typhoons, inundated by torrential rains. Although in the latitude of
Savannah, Georgia, one piercingly cold winter it was almost buried
under snow, the river covered with ice, and men and animals frozen to
death.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century Shanghai’s population was
estimated at over half a million, and her star was in the ascendant.
A forest of masts from a thousand quaint junks, each gaily painted to
represent a fish, with staring eyes--for how, say Chinese mariners, can
a ship see where to go without eyes?--thronged the anchorage. Shanghai
was the busy seaport for the central provinces reached by the Yangtse
and for points up and down the coast. Long before ever a foreigner
settled within her borders her commercial possibilities had been
largely realized and her position as “Queen of the Sea” assured.
In 1842 occurred the great epoch in her history, when with four other
cities she was forced by Great Britain to throw open her gates as a
treaty port. The first Occidentals to reside within the city were
the British Consul and his suite. The most pressing business that
confronted the resident British was to secure land for a permanent
foreign settlement. They soon discovered that it was one thing to
select the site but quite another to get it. The territory chosen
lay to the north and west of the Chinese City and for the most part
consisted of cultivated fields, dotted here and yonder with a village,
and always and everywhere graves, rising in pyramidal grass-grown
mounds. As usual, the chief difficulty was over the graves, which the
purchasers agreed should remain undisturbed. When finally the British
were in complete possession of the land, they decided the struggle had
been even more severe and nerve-racking than the capture of the City.
The French followed close on the heels of the British, demanding from
the Chinese a concession of their own, something that the Americans a
little later, with less friction and noise, simply quietly appropriated.
In 1848, five years after the opening of the Settlement, it is recorded
that the foreign population numbered over one hundred, including a
few women. How imagination takes wings to itself and pictures the
conditions under which the community lived at that time! There were no
hill resorts to flee to for a refreshing breeze in summer, no electric
fans to temper the heat, no ice-cooled drinks, no screens to shut out
the flies and mosquitoes. A stroll on the street was robbed of its
pleasure by lack of sanitation, and a ramble even in the near suburbs
almost unendurable because of the excrement used on the fields as a
fertilizer. Cholera, plague, and other Oriental diseases waxed rampant,
and in the first foreign cemetery many a tiny mound watered with
tears wrung from aching hearts, told an eloquent story of young lives
sacrificed to make possible the Shanghai of to-day.
An outstanding event in the history of Shanghai was the investment of
the city in the early 60’s by the T’aiping rebels, those fanatical
hordes that for fourteen years kept the country in a ferment, and
well-nigh overthrew the Manchu dynasty. As the excited rebels advanced
from the west the populace around fled before them to Shanghai. In
the original Land Regulations drawn up by the foreigners Chinese were
forbidden to reside in the Settlement. The panic-stricken refugees,
however, could not be restrained. They camped first on the outskirts,
but soon afterward pushed in and overran the Settlement without let
or hindrance. Shacks were built to house them. They went up by the
hundreds, like mushrooms, in a night, and real estate speculators
reaped a rich harvest, for often the refugees were people of wealth and
paid handsome rentals. Many of these same speculators, who, carried
away by their good fortune, continued to build at a mad rate, suffered
heavy losses, and some even bankruptcy, when at the close of the
Rebellion the crowds began emptying out as fast as they had poured in.
One reason for the wholesale exodus of the Chinese was their dislike
of the sanitary regulations at that time in force in the Settlement,
and they were in great fear lest the foreigners might gain sufficient
control over the Chinese officials to put the same hated rules into
operation in the interior cities. Though so many refugees returned
to their homes just as soon as it was safe to do so, large numbers
remained, enjoying the protection offered them in the Settlement.
Efforts were made from time to time to eject them, but without avail,
while others gradually drifted into this desirable haven. Thus began
what Shanghai has ever since continued to be, an asylum for the lawless
from all parts of China. The class of respectable unfortunates is also
numerous. A Chinese “Who’s Who” for Shanghai, if accurately compiled,
would astonish the reader with its list of half-forgotten, erstwhile
famous personages, deposed officials, bankrupt aristocrats, antiquated
scholars, men who figured prominently in the affairs of the world,
but, having lost “face,” favor, and fortune, find the cosmopolitan
metropolis a safe retreat in which to end their days.
“First things” always possess a peculiar interest, and of these
Shanghai can lay claim to her full share. The first railroad ever laid
in China ran between Shanghai and the forts at Woosung, twelve miles
distant, where the Whangpoo River joins the Yangtse. The two men sent
out to survey the line had a hard time of it and one of them was nearly
killed by the infuriated people, who declared he should not desecrate
the graves of their ancestors that lay in the path of the proposed
road. This line was completed in 1876, but it was destined to a short
existence. The stealing of window-glass and the blue silk window
curtains by Chinese passengers, unable to comprehend their utility
except as a means to fill their pockets with coveted cash, was a small
matter. The road roused the deep-seated resentment of all classes,
and from the first was doomed. The grand finalé came when a group of
Shanghai officials perfunctorily inspected the entire line from their
sedan-chairs, scorning to stoop to the indignity of riding on the
train, and gravely pronounced it a menace. Soon after this the rails
were tom up and it was long before others were laid in their places.
But the world moved even under the reign of the Manchus, and before
their sun had set the shriek of the locomotive was heard many times
every day between Shanghai and Woosung, while in the “most pro-foreign
city in the world” sedan-chairs are almost as great a novelty as trains
were formerly.
It seems strange that it should have been during the stressful period
of the T’aiping Rebellion that one of the greatest boons China ever
fell heir to was conferred on the distracted nation. That was the
inauguration in Shanghai of the Imperial Maritime Customs, called
by one writer “the most telling Western leaven ever introduced into
China.” The story of the Customs service under the Chinese is one long,
tiresome record of failure, graft, and loss, and it was not till 1854,
when the management was assumed by foreigners, whose probity became at
once the wonder and delight of the natives, that a change was effected.
Guided through half a century by the master hand of Sir Robert Hart,
to whom must also be given much of the credit of the National Chinese
Postal System established during his incumbency, the work has gone on
growing steadily and yielding an increasing revenue. It is eminently
fitting that a statue of Sir Robert in characteristic pose, should
recently have been unveiled in the Bund Park close by the Custom House.
Shanghai has not yet reached the zenith of her prosperity. The Customs
receipts last year were larger than ever before. Twenty and more
vessels bound for as many different ports often leave her docks in a
single day. Never was there as much building in progress, especially of
Chinese houses. The Western traveller who looks out upon the wide Bund,
flanked by handsome foreign buildings, with automobiles and carriages
speeding to and fro, almost wonders whether he is not arriving at a
European capital instead of a city in China. The native population
has grown to over a million. Of the twenty-one thousand resident
foreigners, including Japanese and East Indians, about five thousand
are British and fifteen hundred Americans. The city is a political
theatre where plots are hatched and reforms initiated. It is the
national headquarters of missionary work, the chief seat of commerce,
the home of progress, in short the nerve-centre of China whose
influence reaches out to the remotest corners of the land. Shanghai
faces problems and dangers peculiar to the Orient, but her future is
bright with the promise of boundless development.
II
CIVIC FEATURES
“The quaintest little republic in the world” is what Shanghai is often
called. Certainly there is no city like it in China. Within its present
limits are peoples from many countries, eighteen having consular
representation, and all living, in the main, amicably together under a
polyglot governing body whose members are elected by popular vote. The
working out of the present system of autonomy was a difficult task. The
city fathers long ago fought their way through more than one bitter
controversy, for there were many minds as well as many nationalities.
The Land and Municipal Regulations now in use are practically the
same as those adopted back in 1869. Ten years after Shanghai became a
treaty port the French withdrew from the union and set up a government
of their own. The others formed themselves into the “International
Settlement,” latterly known as the “Model Settlement.” Truth compels
the admission, however, that it is not in all respects as worthy a
“model” as its wellwishers would like to see it. Still it has admirable
features, and as self-respecting a metropolis as Hongkong was urged by
one of her citizens in a recent appeal to wake up and emulate the
example of stirring, progressive Shanghai.
[Illustration: CHINESE POLICEMEN DRAWN UP FOR INSPECTION]
The centre around which everything political revolves is the Municipal
Council. The consuls of the International Settlement each spring call
a meeting of the rate-payers or electors. Any foreigner who owns or
rents property of a fixed value possesses the right of franchise.
The rate-payers elect the members of the Municipal Council, and that
done they retire from the public gaze till the following year, unless
convened for special business. The Council holds weekly sessions. Its
nine members are unsalaried business men. Chinese are not eligible to
membership, but Japanese are, though as a matter of fact there never
had been a Japanese member, greatly to this people’s displeasure, until
a year ago, when one succeeded in getting elected. Judicial authority
is vested in the consuls. Each consul arbitrates for his own nationals
except in the cases of the three countries having fully organized law
courts with resident judges. These are England, America, and Germany.
The English court was established years ago; the American held its
first session in 1907. The Chinese are extremely sore on the subject
of extraterritoriality. That it does not exist in Japan only adds to
their grief and mortification. Since the New Law Codes have been framed
the nation is more insistent than ever that this thorn in its flesh
shall be removed and foreign courts abolished. But the new laws are
not widely operative, and until the old methods of bribery and torture
are forever relegated to the past the Treaty Powers will continue to
claim exclusive rights over their subjects, and the subjects to demand
protection.
A unique institution peculiar to Shanghai, indeed, as some one has
called it, “the most unique institution ever dedicated to justice,” is
the Mixed Court. In the early days, when Chinese were made prisoners in
the International Settlement, they were turned over to the Chinese City
officials for trial and punishment, but justice was rare, and cruel or
unduly lenient treatment the rule. To protect the Chinese, and insure
fair dealing in those cases in which foreigners were involved, as well
as to try the cases of foreigners having no consular representation,
the Mixed Court was established in 1865. It has not proved a wholly
satisfactory solution of the difficulty, for the law in force is the
Chinese law, and the foreign assessor, an Englishman, American, or
German, according to the day of the week, who occupies a seat on the
judicial bench beside the Chinese judge, ranks as little more than a
figurehead, acting merely in an advisory capacity. Practically though,
it must be said, and this is particularly true since 1911, he is coming
to be the real power behind the throne, and to exercise pretty much of
a controlling influence. At the time of the revolution the management
of the Mixed Court passed from the hands of the Chinese to the control
of the Municipal Council. The change was effected quietly, so that
while the Chinese were well aware of what was going on they could
appear not to know, and thus save their “face.” If only “face” can be
preserved facts are of small moment.
A morning spent in visiting the Mixed Court is to most people an
experience of absorbing interest, as it throws innumerable side-lights
on Chinese life and character. At half-past nine each morning, the
hour of opening court, the foreign assessor and the Chinese judge
walk in and take their seats, each flanked by his interpreters and
clerks of solemn mein. The witnesses, Chinese and foreign, assemble on
opposite sides of the room, the prisoners, most of them poor forlorn
specimens of humanity, file into the docket closely guarded by Sikh
and Chinese policemen, with an English sergeant-at-arms on duty near
by, while in the hall, around the door and pressing as far inside as
they dare, gathers the curious, motley crowd of onlookers, many of them
relatives and friends of the prisoners, but stolidly immobile during
all the proceedings. Is there another place in the world where such a
variety of cases is heard as at the Shanghai Mixed Court, cases civil
and criminal, tragic, pathetic and comic? Some are intricate enough to
tax the wisdom of a Solomon, and some are simple as a child’s play. An
old couple appeared one morning to petition for a divorce. Their faces
wore such a kindly expression, they seemed so at peace with mankind in
general and each other in particular, that the judge was puzzled. “Have
you quarreled?” he asked. “Oh, no.” “Don’t you live happily together?”
“We are most happy and that is why we are here,” hastily explained
the old woman. Then the whole story was poured out. An evil omen had
convinced them that in the future they would quarrel frightfully,
separate, and die apart of broken hearts, so in order to avert such
a calamity they had determined to take time by the forelock and part
company while they were still good friends. A few words of advice and
assurance set matters all right, and it was not long before the aged
lovers, for that is what they really were, passed smilingly out of the
courtroom, hand in hand, to return to their humble home. No executions
take place in the Settlement. Prisoners sentenced to capital punishment
are handed over to the Chinese authorities, and here again “face” is
considered, for while the death sentence has actually been passed the
court in the Chinese City is allowed to assume that it has not, and
proceed as if the prisoner was condemned on its own initiative.
The building occupied by the Mixed Court is bounded on the right by
the Woman’s Prison and on the left by the Debtor’s Prison. Under the
Chinese regime discipline was practically nil and affairs were left
largely to run themselves. Inmates of the Debtor’s Prison might smoke
opium and gamble to their heart’s content, provided they could get the
money, while dancing-girls furnished them entertainment. In the woman’s
prison conditions were even worse. The top floor was set apart as a
rendezvous for the young children of the prisoners, wretched, neglected
little ones, exposed to every kind of evil influence. Their mothers
in the cells below did pretty much as they liked. One of their tricks
was to thrust their hands between the iron rods at the windows, and
tear away by main force the corrugated iron screen so that they could
chatter noisily with the people in the street below, and by letting
down a string draw up food or anything else their friends were minded
to tie on the end. The wardresses (the only man about the place is the
gatekeeper) were deceitful, faithless, open to bribes, in fact little
better than the women behind the bars.
But marked changes have taken place during the past few years. As soon
as the foreign municipality assumed control, a prerogative by the way
likely any time to revert to the Chinese, who are considerably nettled
over their loss of authority, the young children were removed from
their pernicious environment and placed in a Home under the care of a
Christian woman. The Municipal Council supports this Home. The whole
staff of wardresses was dismissed and their places filled by others who
were strictly watched till their faithfulness was proved. The filthy
building underwent a thorough cleaning, repainting, and calcimining.
Baths, laundries, and doctors’ examining rooms were added to the plant
and the prisoners required to exercise an hour daily in the sunny,
cement-paved court, which has resulted in a marked improvement in the
health record. The chief lack now is industrial work for the women,
who have absolutely no employment except scrubbing the corridors and
washing their own clothes. The sole break in the dull monotony of their
lives comes when the gentle, sweet-faced missionary from the Door of
Hope visits the prison with her Chinese Bible woman, going from cell
to cell to sing, read, and pray. Four women are confined in a cell,
which is fairly well lighted and sufficiently large. The Chinese beds
are entirely devoid of bedding even in the coldest weather, the padded
garments of the prisoners being expected to suffice. Nursing babies up
to four or five months old are allowed to stay with their mothers. Most
of the women are convicted for kidnapping, and the sentences do not
extend at the longest beyond eight or ten years.
The Debtor’s Prison is officially known as the “House of Detention.”
Its prisoners are not chained, may walk about freely, smoke, play
games provided they are not games of chance, and at certain hours
each day are allowed to see their friends in a small room at one
side. On a winter’s day, when the windows and door of this room are
shut, the contracted space packed with people, and the air heavy
enough with tobacco smoke to cut with a knife, it is almost as much
as a foreigner’s life is worth to take even a hasty peep inside. The
prisoners provide their own bedding and food, with the exception of
rice, and on the whole appear to enjoy themselves and to be in no hurry
for their release, though some have hidden away quite enough money to
pay their debt if they cared to, and others have relatives or friends
who could easily pay it for them. Recently two men were set at liberty
by the court on the presumption that they were really unable to meet
their obligation, one after seven years’ imprisonment and the other
five. The Municipal jail for men is several miles away, in a more
open part of the city. Its massive, gray brick walls shut in between
eleven and twelve hundred prisoners, all of them Chinese, for foreign
prisoners are lodged temporarily in small prisons connected with
their consulates, or, when the consulate has no prison, in the British
jail. The discipline and upkeep of the jail are about perfect. The
superintendent is a Christian who arranges for regular Sunday services
for the prisoners, the Young Men’s Christian Association having general
charge.
Industrial work of various kinds, including tailoring, mat weaving, and
carpentering, is carried forward on a large scale, and a considerable
amount of the city’s road-paving and repairing is done by the
prisoners. Short terms in jail are rather welcomed than otherwise
by many of the men, for they mean to them shelter, good food, warm
blankets, and a chance to learn a trade under the most favourable
conditions. Indeed, it has come to pass that many habitual offenders
are in the habit of flocking to Shanghai as soon as the cold weather
sets in with the express purpose of putting up at the jail for the
winter. A specific instance occurred a while ago when a Chinese walked
into one of the police stations and cheerfully announced that he wanted
to be arrested. “My belong velly bad man,” he said, “velly bad man.”
Not being able to give any special reason why he should be arrested
at that particular time, he was told to go about his business. But
he insisted. He was “velly bad,” and wanted to be arrested, and it
was with a look of pained surprise that he made his way out of the
station. As he walked down the street, thinking with dismay of the cold
weather ahead, a happy inspiration struck him. He went in search of
a policeman, and having found one, proceeded to beat him. He did his
work thoroughly, was quickly arrested by another policeman, and taken
to the nearest police station, beaming with satisfaction. The problem
of his winter’s lodging had been solved. A moot question for some time
past has been the advisability of reviving the practice of flogging
with the bamboo. Many officials, Chinese as well as foreign, contend
that this punishment as formerly administered by the Mixed Court, was
thoroughly humane, and that as it has real terror for the Chinese
nothing begins to be so effective in preventing crime, which has of
late been greatly on the increase.
Formerly there was no Reformatory, and young boys convicted of no
worse crime than petty stealing were often confined in the same
cell with hardened criminals. It was the present superintendent who
agitated the need of a separate building for the boys under sixteen,
and finally a great three-story warehouse was purchased and fitted up
for this purpose by the Municipal Council. Some of the lads are as
young as nine. “The longer I live in China and the more I see of its
poverty-stricken multitudes the less I blame any one for stealing,”
exclaimed a Y.M.C.A. visitor at the Reformatory. The boys do industrial
work in the morning and in the afternoon study, drill, and play. The
fire drill is fine, but the military drill is the boys’ delight. Those
best trained take turns in acting as drill-master. They give the orders
in English and the company responds with a vim. Insubordination is
punished by obliging the offender to scrub the wooden floors with sand,
sometimes for a whole day. They are kept beautifully white. “You should
see the kitchen!” said a frequent caller to a new comer. “It is so
clean you could eat off the floor!” Several Christian Chinese business
men in Shanghai have an understanding with the superintendent that they
will receive a limited number of boys sent out from the reformatory,
give them employment and a chance to begin life anew.
One of the first things that impressed itself on the early foreign
settlers in Shanghai was the need of an adequate police force. In the
beginning it was limited to a handful of Chinese watchmen under the
joint jurisdiction of the Chinese and foreigners. An amusing story
of those days is that the police were in the habit of lining up for
inspection in their own nondescript garments, but wearing foreign
military caps and carrying in place of rifles closed Chinese umbrellas
of oiled paper! Now the city is well guarded by 230 English policemen,
450 Sikh Indians, and over a thousand Chinese. The picturesque red
turbans of the Sikhs are conspicuous everywhere. These men are harsh
but efficient preservers of the peace. The Chinese are afraid of them.
There is one especially tall Sikh of whom his foreign superior says,
“He is the only man that I am absolutely certain will carry out my
orders in my absence as if I were present.” One of his duties is to
punish Chinese police delinquents by putting them through a severe
physical drill half an hour long in summer and an hour in winter. “It
looks easy enough,” a foreign lady remarked, as she watched the men,
“Why, I exercise harder than that when I play tennis.” “Oh no, you
don’t bring into action every muscle in this way,” smiled the head
officer. “These men are glad enough to lie down and rest after their
stunt is finished. I had one man that fainted, but he was abnormal.”
What makes this punishment especially objectionable to the Chinese is
that it is administered by a Sikh. If an English officer were over them
it would not hurt half so much. The work of a policeman attracts the
Chinese and there is never any lack of recruits. The course of training
lasts three months. Scientific wrestling appeals to the novice strongly
and he soon acquires real skill. The officers have a unique method of
putting a stop to fighting among the men. The combatants are given
boxing gloves, forbidden to bite or kick, two favorite forms of attack
with them, and then made to fight until they are thoroughly tired out.
One such experience usually works a cure for all time.
Chinese barracks are clean and severely plain. “We carry on a constant
warfare against bedbugs,” says the foreign sergeant. “I do not allow
a hook or nail in the walls, except the bracket back of each bed for
holding the rifle, and that I wouldn’t permit up again, for vermin hide
in the corners.” Every Saturday the planks on which the men sleep are
scrubbed with sand and water. The sand soon works into the pores of
the wood where bugs are apt to lodge, so it acts both as a cleanser
and an insect preventive. When a man goes home to spend a day, as he
is sometimes allowed to do, the barracks on his return must undergo
a special cleaning, for he is sure to bring back a fresh relay of
bugs. The past year an innovation has been introduced in furnishing
the Chinese police with rifles, a convincing proof of their general
faithfulness and the trust reposed in them. They are not permitted to
take the rifles to their homes, but when going off duty leave them at
the police stations.
The Sikh recruiting station is on the same grounds with the Chinese
but in a separate yard. The chief embarrassment in connection with the
Sikhs is their food. They are East Indians and can not eat what the
Chinese do. Caste rules are inflexible and time must be given them
to prepare food in their own way no matter how greatly the staff is
inconvenienced. The Sikhs are stern disciplinarians, but in character
no more dependable than most of the Chinese, nor in some cases as much
so. A Sikh watchman patrolling an outlying district rang one evening
the doorbell of a foreigner’s house. “It is raining,” he remarked
blandly. “Can I have a chair and sit on your veranda?” It was observed
afterward that he frequently camped on the veranda when it was _not_
raining. The Sikhs are not required to learn Chinese, but they are
encouraged to do so by being promoted and given higher salaries when
they can speak it. Chinese is demanded of European policemen. They of
course constitute the backbone of the staff. The Municipal Department
supports a hospital, one of the cleanest and best in the city, for
Chinese policemen; it is also used for prisoners from the Municipal
Jail. Women prisoners when sick are sent to a woman’s mission hospital.
In case of riot or other emergency Shanghai would not need to rely
wholly on the police force, for it has a dependable Volunteer Corps,
at present 1,300 strong. As long ago as 1853 the Volunteer Corps was
organized, and ever since the T’aiping Rebellion, when the members
rendered such valiant service, there has been occasion time and again
to turn to them for help. Their most recent laurels were won during
the Rebellion in the summer of 1913, when Shanghai was the centre of
the war zone. To watch the Corps at drill or on parade, so many sturdy
young men among the older ones in the ranks, gives foreign residents
an exhilarating sense of security, and warms their hearts with a glow
of honest pride in their defenders. Among the many nationalities
represented in the Volunteer Corps is a strong Chinese contingent,
and it causes a still further quickening of the pulse to learn from
the commanding officer that whenever the Chinese Volunteers have been
called into action their efficiency and loyalty have been in the
highest degree commendable. During the past year a Volunteer Motor Car
Company was added to the force. It started with eighteen private cars
and men to run them, but in case of need practically all the private as
well as public cars in the city would be placed at the disposal of the
Volunteers.
The Shanghai Fire Department dates back to 1866. The three chief
officers are employees of the Municipal Council, but all the members
of the four companies are volunteers. There are three fire stations
and three watch towers, besides a one-thousand-gallon fire float
moored at one of the jetties on the Bund. Three motor vehicles are
in use and the purpose is to abolish horses as rapidly as possible.
In a cosmopolitan city like Shanghai, where all sorts of buildings
crowd upon one another in the densely populated districts, fires are
constantly breaking out, but the Fire Brigade handles them so well that
destructive ones are rare.
“Why is it your letters always come to me with a two-cent United
States stamp on them?” wrote a bright American club woman to a friend
in Shanghai. Her perplexity is not surprising, since even certain
government departments in Washington have been known to send to
Shanghai franked envelopes bearing five-cent stamps. The independence
of the “Little Republic,” albeit on Chinese soil, is emphasized by its
having six foreign postoffices--British, American, German, French,
Russian, and Japanese. Three countries--Great Britain, America, and
Germany--have legalized the domestic rate of postage to and from
Shanghai. But home letters forwarded from Shanghai to interior points
require the usual foreign postage of five cents, and parcels from
abroad sent inland must be rewrapped, restamped, and go through the
Chinese postoffice.[1]
[1] As these pages go to press arrangements are being made for an
International Parcel Post.
It is a pity that China failed to improve her flood-tide of opportunity
in 1878, when she was formally invited to join the International Postal
Union, in the hope that it would encourage her to establish a national
postoffice. But with a short-sighted policy she declined to do so, and
it was not till September 1st, 1914, that this privilege was finally
embraced. Though for years a national postoffice was urged upon the
people and often seemed about to materialize through the efforts of
progressive statesmen like Li Hung Chang, yet it did not really make
its appearance till 1896. Up to that time mail was distributed from
local stations under local control, and as means of rapid transit
were very few, much of it was delivered by couriers. There are still
many courier routes in the interior where railroads and steamers do
not penetrate, but the couriers, often on foot, sometimes on mule or
horseback, waste no time in getting over the ground, not infrequently
travelling between eighty and ninety miles a day, and this in spite of
unspeakably bad roads, to say nothing of brigands, floods, and a few
other minor difficulties! Shanghai is the largest distributing centre
in China, and in the substantial red brick Chinese postoffice, just
across the road from the British postoffice, an enormous business is
carried on. All heads of departments are foreigners. Periodically the
Chinese voice a protest, declaring that as the Chinese staff has now
received sufficient training, it is prepared to fill unaided the most
responsible positions. But sagacious Chinese politicians are loth to
release the foreigners, realizing that a change at the present time
would inevitably entail a grave risk. It is rather interesting that the
newest and handsomest postoffice building in Shanghai is the Japanese.
There are no foreign postmen except Japanese. Chinese postmen in neat
green livery cover their route on bicycles. There are six deliveries a
day in the business districts and three and four in the residential.
One family was so disturbed by the postman bringing mail at ten o’clock
or later at night, and insistently ringing the door-bell until it
was answered, that they requested him to defer delivering the late
mail until morning, but he continued to call whenever he had letters,
evidently impressed that the postoffice rules were inflexible and must
no more be broken than the laws of the Medes and Persians.
Probably the most interesting of any branch of the foreign Municipal
government is the Health Department. Eighteen years ago when the doctor
in charge settled in Shanghai and started a campaign against disease,
he was not building on another man’s foundation, for nothing like it
had ever been attempted. A member of the staff has aptly called the
Municipal laboratory “the brain of the department.” It is certainly
kept busy in a thousand ways. People from all over China, for one
thing, turn to it for the Pasteur treatment. But its chief work centres
about plague prevention. Plague is the bane of the Orient, and plague,
it was discovered in 1908, is transmitted to human beings through fleas
that carry the poison from infected rats. Then to prevent plague,
rats must be exterminated, no easy matter in a city like Shanghai.
The campaign began in this way. The city was divided into districts,
the districts into sub-districts and sub-districts into blocks, and
a map made of the whole. A raid on rats followed. Every one caught,
dead or alive, was taken to the laboratory and an examination made.
A black-headed pin was stuck in the map over the spot where each
plague-infected rat was found. A red headed pin on the map indicated
a human death from plague. In this way it was soon learned what parts
of the city were specially invaded by the pests. To kill the rats,
however, amounted to little, for others soon appeared to take their
places. Something more radical needed to be done. After the Municipal
Council had passed rules calling for the rat-proofing of houses, a
more difficult task confronted the officers of the Health Department
in getting the rules enforced. They were needed badly enough for
foreign houses, but were drawn up especially for Chinese dwellings
where often four and five families are crowded like sardines into one
small building. At first the Chinese strenuously opposed and ridiculed
the rules but later came to regard them more favorably. The people
are terrorized at the outbreak of plague, and when a few years ago
Shanghai was threatened with a bad epidemic, they were ready for the
time being to submit to anything that promised to stamp it out and
prevent another visitation. The rules demand that there shall be no
open space underneath the ground floor, and by laying three inches of
tar chips on six inches of concrete, it is impossible for rats to enter
the house from below. The health officers also urge upon householders,
although not included in the rules, that walls be made solid and the
upper story left without a ceiling, showing simply the bare rafters.
Many old houses as well as new ones are treated in this way. Sometimes
a whole block of old houses is rat-proofed at one time. While the work
goes on the people turn out of their homes and camp in the street in
front of them, cooking their meals over little charcoal fires, and
squatting patiently about till they can go back. But education is a
slow process and opposition still continues. The ideal worked toward
is the one already reached in Manila and held up as an example, “_No
hollow spaces whatever accessible to rats._” With the most careful
economy it costs the Health Department two cents to catch each rat,
yet whenever notified by a foreign or Chinese tenant it is prepared to
send its employees with traps to rid the premises. Stationary garbage
receptacles of concrete, with spring lids, that are fire and rat proof,
have been placed in large numbers all over the city. Several times a
day they are emptied through an opening below and the contents carried
off in municipal carts. The receptacles are liked by the Chinese, who
seldom now throw their garbage on the ground.
[Illustration: DISTRIBUTION OF PLAGUE 1914]
The danger from contagious diseases is not so easily controlled. There
is no law requiring small-pox, cholera, or even plague patients to go
to the Chinese Isolation Hospital. Moral suasion is the only influence
that can be brought to bear on them, and it is not always sufficiently
powerful. But a vigorous campaign in the interest of the prevention
of disease is continually in progress. Every month, and every day of
the month, printed circulars are scattered broadcast. They are written
in both English and Chinese, and relate to sanitation, hygiene, the
danger of promiscuous spitting, of flies and mosquitoes, the need of
removing stagnant water and rat-proofing houses. In the autumn and
winter notices are posted on electric light and telephone poles calling
the attention of passers-by to free vaccination for Chinese at any
one of the sixteen branch offices of the health department. Health
lectures are given weekly at the health offices, and not only that
but heed is paid to the old proverb: “If the hill will not come to
Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill.” Although the lectures, which
are of a popular character, usually draw a large, attentive crowd,
trained Chinese employees lecture in schools, tea-shops, and other
places where the people are wont to gather. They carry around a dinner
bell which they ring to attract an audience, and they soon have it.
When the lectures first began the people did not understand their
intent, and they aroused almost fierce opposition. But the Chief of the
Department, a physician of great tact and urbanity, sent invitations
to some of the leading business men and officials to meet him at a
specified time and place when he addressed them in person explaining
the character of his campaign. After that there was no further trouble.
A large force of coolies is employed to fight mosquitoes. They work in
pairs in districts assigned to them. Their duty is to gather up old
tins, bottles, and broken crockery, warn residents against leaving
about their premises tubs, empty flower-pots, and other vessels capable
of holding rain-water, obliterating shallow pools and slushy places
by means of scratch drains or filling them up with house ashes, and
sprinkling kerosene oil on stagnant water that can not be drawn off.
The coolies are inspired to faithfulness by frequent and unannounced
inspection of their work.
Among the many business houses regularly inspected by the Health
Department are dairies, laundries, tea, fruit, and meat shops,
restaurants and bakeries. Licenses prohibit in tea-shops the hawking of
fresh food stuffs on the premises; dairies, bakeries, and laundries
must be calcimined twice a year, no one shall sleep or eat in them, nor
may they be attached to a dwelling-house. In bakeries the spraying of
fluid from the mouth on the products of the bakery is prohibited, and
in laundries the same rule applies to the sprinkling of clothes. In
dairies workers are required to keep their clothes clean and wash their
hands before milking. Always and everywhere spitting is forbidden and
also the employment of persons with communicable diseases. To suppose
that these rules are carried out to the letter, would be altogether too
much to expect of human nature. That they act as a powerful deterrent
is certainly true. The foreign dairies are the best, but one Chinese
dairy enjoys the enviable reputation of never having been either fined
or cautioned. The Municipal Slaughter House is kept strictly sanitary
and cattle and carcasses are examined daily. Good meat is stamped with
the words “Killed Municipal Slaughter House.” Inferior meat but free
from disease is marked “2nd Quality.” No meat for foreign consumption
is allowed to be brought into the Settlement unless it bears the
Municipal stamp.
Tuberculosis is the Chinaman’s Nemesis, and too often pursues him from
the cradle to the grave. It is also frightfully common among the poor
Eurasians who herd together under lamentable conditions. The only
remedy for this prevailing malady seems to be to educate, educate,
educate, and that is being done as thoroughly and effectively as
possible. The Society of King’s Daughters recently did a fine thing.
They planned a Tuberculosis Exhibit, which was held for a week or more
in an empty down town store. Much of the exhibit was loaned and set
up by the Young Men’s Christian Association that is itself carrying
on a telling campaign against China’s “White Scourge.” Maps, charts,
pictures, devices of all kinds for arresting the attention and teaching
a lesson, were arranged attractively, but two things in particular
produced a profound impression. One was a bell that every thirty-seven
seconds clanged ominously. Over it hung a placard announcing in Chinese
and English that every time the bell tolled some poor victim in China
died of tuberculosis. The other design was more conspicuously placed
in one of the large show windows and always attracted a crowd of
absorbed, silent Chinese. The sight that held them spell-bound was a
perfect model of a Chinese house, out of which stepped a Chinaman, who,
after walking a few steps, fell into a Chinese coffin that instantly
disappeared in the earth. This happened every eight seconds and each
drop of the coffin represented a death from tuberculosis somewhere in
the world.
Before 1898 there was practically no Health Department and no health
campaign. If progress at times seems slow, one has only to look back
to realize what a marvellous change for the better has been wrought in
a decade and a half. Perhaps more to the Health Department than to any
other branch of the Municipal Government Shanghai owes its right to be
called “The Model Settlement.” The group of Central Municipal Buildings
covering an entire square in the heart of the city forms one of the
finest plants of the kind to be found in the Far East.
III
STREET RAMBLES
“I have lived in China nearly twenty-five years, yet I never go on
the street without seeing something new and interesting,” exclaimed a
vivacious little missionary doctor to a group of fresh arrivals. Her
remark was made about Peking, but the outdoor life in Shanghai has its
own unique charm.