Ir would we think be improper to pass over the lamentable occurrence which has taken place during the present week without a word of comment, The death of three men, the serious injury of five others, the panic of hundreds, and the loss of probably a Inrge sum of money have resulted from the vicious system of building indulged in by the Chine d unfortunately permitted hitherto by the Municipal authorities. Every architect and build-or knows that scamping is one of the vices of the present day, even in civilised Europe. Some time ago there was a general outery on the subject. The Bishop of Manchester made it the theme of pulpit-denunciations, and the comic papers found in ita source of constantsatireand wit. Itisa traism that houses are not what they once were, Old houses were built substantially, on firm, solid foundations, and were the castles' of their owners in point of strength as well as in point of proprietorship. Bat now, when the fairest portions of roral England are being ruthlessly cut up and divided into lots, and ghastly rows of staring villas are ran up by speculators in the course of a few weeks where before there wore sloping meadows and shady Iaues, it is not surprising that the struc. tures thus rapidly multiplied should prove dangers rather than protections to their tenants. In no country, however, is flimsiness of architecture carried to a greater pitch than in China, Now Chinese houses may be roughly divided into two classes. There is the tez-sun chi-yeh, or " entailed family property"—if a very froe trans lation may be permitted—and residences of this description are generally both extensive and securely built. There is the surrounding wall, the entrance, the inner court, and the various apart+ ments, all of which latter are situated on the ground. On this plan are built most of the houses in the north; even the lowest inns, which consist wholly of mud, are thus fairly safe frow either fire or collapse. Then we have the THF shih fang or business premises, Houses of this sort are built flush with the sttest, and are generally very fragile, These are included in what are called [Ht Bo BE ch'u-lin fang-wu or tenements built to let. The owner secures himself against possible disaster by exacting from his tonant a certain deposit as guarantee in case of the destraction of his property, which remains in his possession until the expiry of the louse. It is then returned intact, but without interest. In the case of the house being burnt down, and the tonant wishing to take on another: from the same landlord, the former forfeits the amount of his deposit and adds a further deposit of two-thirds the original one; if, on the other hand, no fresh lease is entered into, the landlord returns one-third of the deposit to the tenant, who thus loses two-thirds by his misfortune. It. amounts in fact to a sort of fire-insurance system, in which both parties are variously interested and both sustain a loss. But no disaster or pecuniary mulct teaches them wisdom in the construc. tion of their dwellings, The skeleton of a half-finished native house looks more like a section of frail scaffolding than the frame-work of a tenement intended to endure. The foundations hay and shallow. The walls are and loosely put together. What, when the house is finished, appears to be solid brick and wood, is nothing more than paper with nothing to speak of behind it. The temptations to scamp houses in this way are of course very great. Building on these lines is cheap and easy, and the houses when finished are in most instances rapidly and eagerly rented by Chinese at rates which bring in a very handsome return to the proprietors. The thin wooden parti" tions, the creaky floors, the narrow, crooked, crazy staircases, the droughty planks which compose the walls, do not appear to affect the Chinese dis. agreeably. It has often been bumotously said that a Chinaman's idea of comfort and convenience coincides almost exactly with a foreigner's
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.