Tue old convention regarding the residence of Chinese within the Settlements, which we reprint on another page, has probably been perused by fow-of the present residents of Shanghai, yet it is interesting in itself as a record of the steps which led to the peopling by Chinese of those districts at first intended to be set apart for foreign renters. In reproducing it, we are not deprecating the admission of Chinese within municipal its, for that we believe was not only inevitable, but has been vastly advantageous to foreign trade and, we believe, to foreign comfort; but while we are not sorry to see Chinese settled around us as fellow-townsman, there yet probably exist cases where it would be advisable to restrain the tendency to build over with native houses, crowded into the smallest possible space, the few vacant spots now to be obtained within a reasonable distance of the business parts of this Settlement: We have some reason to complain of the disregard of the commonest measures of decency by the Chinese dwellers in the Settlement; and our parses tell us too plainly, in exorbitant route hat the system of overcroy " pted by them has other ¥ caus, In other words, while the aca in the Settle: ments of Umness has been a direct benefit; the manner in which they delight' to cluster together has, by forcing an unreasonable price on land, so far increased the expense of trading as to seriously affect the capacity for basines of the foreigners resident at Shanghai. We should be sorry to see our fellow-countrymen forced into the narrow dens in which it delights the natives to: dwell. Yet so great is the tendency to contract the space in which he dwells, that something of the sort bids fair to occur. While we continually see spaces once occupied by foreign dwellings or compounds encroached on by Chinese buildings, there is scarcely an instance of the reverse process—of land occupied by Chinese becoming converted to foreign uses. It would be too much to expect the owners of property to give up freely the greater for the less, unless by common consent such a practice were made binding on all, but it vould probably not be very unpopular with the laud owners themselves were the convention carried oat in its entirety. We do not know that properties now covered with Chinese houses bringing in good, rentals, should have these removed 80 as to become unyielding to their owners; but we would suggest that a stop be put to farther encroachments in spaces likely to be occupied by foreign dwellings, or that within certain limits no more than a fixed number of Chinese dwellings should be erected on a settled area. Let us have the Chinese by all means in the Settlement, but let us endeavour to prevent the sanitary and economical blunders of overcrowding.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.