However we may occasionally criticise the policy of the Manicipal Council in matters where international jurisdiction is concerned, it cannot be denied that a desire has always ben evinced on the part of that body to improve the condition of the Settlement. There are cases, indeed, in which little or nothing has been done where something more might at least lnve been attempted the Council, Lowever has never denied the advisability of such reforms—it has simply pleaded practical inability, and lack of administrative power. We refer now more particularly. to such measures as the supervision of native dwellings, and, in fact, all undertakings urged upon Councillors by the Health Officer which they no doubt acknowledge to be necessary to the sanitary condition of the Settlement, but which they sny they have no power to carry out, Whether the plea is in all me stances a good one is another matter; suffice it to say that it is at any rate honestly urged... Bat in oases where the Council sees no legal difficulty it is but just to recognise the publio-s There is no doubt, for example, that Shanghai is @ cleaner and a handsomer town to-day than it was ten years ago, hope it is a healthier one, too not care to speak more posi this point, beyond acknowledging the invaluable assistance to sanitary matters afforded by the Shanghai Waterworks Ca. Nothing is more conducive, in its way, to the health and beauty-of a place than wide streets; and there is no doubt that successive Councils, have done everything in their power to widen the wretchedly narrow thoroughfares of the English Settlement, The meagre scale on which our streets were laid out thirty-five or forty years ago shows how little our predecessors foresaw the tremendous increase of traffic which Las since supervened, and the nigont necessity that has arisen for elbow-room out of doors. Their mistake is now g rectified slowly, and at consider able difficulty and expense; what can be done is being done, though we fear that it will prove impossible to widen the stroots to the fullest extent that is really necessary. 'I'wouty-five yearsagoalmost the only vehicles' in Shanghai were wheelbarrows and sedan-chairs, When the Bubbling-well Road was laid out wheeled carriages came into vogue, but these were for a long time very fow in number, Daring the last fifteen years, however, they have increased ten-fold, while to-day we suffer from an Egyptian plague of innumerable jinricsha, which, from their very numbers, are exocedingly difficult to control. 'The case then is this: that with.streeta very little wider than when the only vehicles were wheelbarrows and sedans, we Lave now brokers' traps, broughams, landaus, victorias, jinricsha, and a perfectawarm of Muloo carriages, hired by Chinese, all claiming a portion of the thorough. fares. The order kept by the now policemen is nothing Jess than admire able, and they deserve every credit for the success of their efforts to regulate the traffic. Bat they cannot cope with the impossible; they cannot widen the streets; they can regulate the traffic to a certain extent, but they cannot relieve it. Something, however, may be done, It is not often that Nature comes to the Lelp of municipalities, but there is one thoroughfare in Shanghai. which she has widened as 10 Municipal Council, past or present, could have widened it, Forty years ago the Bund was no more, than a towing-path, and the river flowed: within: a fow: feet of the honseg
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.