20th Nov.
Tue celebration of the Jubilee of Shanghai is over, and we may fairly congratulate ourselves on having achieved a success. The Council and the Committees who had charge of the celebration might be trusted beforehand to do everything that was in their power to make the successive entertainments pass off brilliantly; but with all it was mainly an out-door celebration, and if the skies had refused their ce-operation, the efforts of mere mortals would have been thrown away. Happily, no such disappointment came to spoil Shanghai's Golden Wedding; we were blessed with the ideal autumn weather of which we boast when it rains too much in the spring and is too hot in summer. The sky was clear, the sun bright, with just enough air to make the thousands of flags shake out their folds, and to blow away the smoke that is apt to settle down on Shanghai on perfectly windless winter days, but not enough to inter-fore in any way with the success of the illuminations. No one indeed could entirely forget that he who was the leading spirit in the celebration, one of the foremost men in Shanghai, had been ruthlessly snatched away from us by death only a few days before, his body being followed to the grave under the triumphal arches erected under his aedileship—such are' the contrasts of life; and the great hong of Messrs. Jardine, Matheson & Ca. with the gates and every window and door closed, its sad aspect accentuated by the bright gas devices which were allowed to remain in order that the general aspect of the Bund might not be interrupted, was a mute reminder of the loss we have suffered.
The presence of the Governor of Hongkong, of Admiral Sir Edmund Fremantle, R.N., and a large number of guests, including one, Mr. Thomas Hanbury, who was celebrating the fortieth' anniversary of his arrival in Shanghai, and who marked his presence by the munificent gift alluded to in Mr. Mu'rhead's address, added eclat to the Jubilee proceedings. From the first function on Friday morning it was evident that everyone, notwithstanding the inevitable grumbles that had been heard here and there beforehand that nobody wanted a Jubilee and that the whole thing was a waste of money, had determined that the celebration should go off well. The parade at the Race Course was a triumphant success, the large naval contingent from the British and French ships in harbour, and the Volunteers turning out and marching to perfection. lo those who were privileged to hear it, as well as to those who will read it, the magnificent address made by Mr. Muirhead was one of the great features of the Jubilee that will dwell longest in memory. It was a happy thought in-yiting Mr. Muirhead to be the orator of the day, and most happily did he carry out the duty imposed on him. He gave with an eloquence which kept his large audience hanging on his. spirited words, in a voice which age cannot wither and which custom has strengthened and not staled, a review of Shanghai as it was—which no one was so fitted as he, our oldest resident, to give (he came here in 1847)—and as it is, and pointed out what we have still to do to justify our claim to be a leaven in the vast mass of China.
Tt was a grand speech, grandly spoken. There are not many places which offera better site for such a function than this Settlement with its Bund and broadlawas sloping down to the river; and when the men-of-war fired the salute at noon, and the sailors and Volunteers their feu de join, the spectacle, with myriads of flags and coloured lanterns to give more colour to the scene, and thousands of blue-coated Chinese massed in the roadways, was one which few who were present will ever forget. We may try and fancy to ourselves what Shanghai will be like fifty years hence, and imagine how 1943 will be observed but it will. be many years before we shall have a spectacle here to surpass the picture on the lawn on Friday, when the honoured white-haired orator was recalling to us what we have done and what we have still to do.
Thanks to all those, the ladies and the Navy especially, who took up with such energy and enthusiasm the task of directing it, the Children's Fete on the Race Course was another triumphant success. It is after all the children of Shanghai who are most interested in the Jubilee. It is they who have to carry on the lamp of progress which we who are now dropping out of the rauks have borne for fifty years; it is with them that the future of Shanghai rests; and one of the great objects of the celebration is to impress on them what we have done, and get them to realise that they must carry on the work. Some of those whose voices raised the Jubilee Song on Friday, with its spirited refrain, a worthy evidence of the talents of our poet laureate, Archdeacon Moule, and our organist, Mr. F. L. Crompton, will perhaps be here at the next Jubilee; we cannot doubt that they will have as good a tale to tell of fifty years of work as we have. That the children of all ages and all nationalities, who assembled in their hundreds, thoroughly enjoyed the three hours of amusement provided for them, no-one could doubt who saw them. Many, if not all, of those who so generously devoted themselves to the amuse-iment of the little ones, must have been wearied out as the coming of the dusk put an end to this part of the fete, but they must have been repaid by the Imowledge that they had made the success which was achieved, and that they had filled hundreds of little hearts with gratitude for their kindness, As the darkness came on, the lighting of thousands of coloured lanterns began. The whole length of the Maloo and Nanking Road, the whole of the English Bund, the upper part of Broadway, the water-front on the Hongkew side and on Pootung, the ships in har-hour, were flooded with the mellow light that Chinese and Japanese lanterns give so well, gas and electricity adding here and there their radiance to the general effect. Never before has so much of Shanghai been illuminated at once, and it was remarkable how heartily the Chinese residents on the Maloo and Nanking Road had joined in to make this great thoroughfare brilliant. The procession of the Volunteer Fire Brigade, followed by that of the Chinese Guilds, amused and interested crowds that must be numbered by tens of thousands, of men, women, and children who had come in from every part of the country round, and Chinese crowds, while dense enough, are the most orderly in the world. It was unfortunate that owing to some misunderstanding the Chinese procession got separated from the Firemen, and meeting the Fire Parade as it was returning, near the end of the Nanking Road, turned round, so that the people along the Bund north of the great triumphal arch, never saw it at all. It was hoped that they would be able to make up on Saturday for this disappointment, but again there was some misunderstanding, and though fragments of the procession were seen from time to time straggling with the dense crowds that almost overwhelmed them, and that the few police on duty on Saturday could hardly control, the expected general Parade of the Guilds was a failure. How this happened is not clearly understood, but it appears to have been due to some inter-provineial jealousy, some dispute between the men of Canton and the men of Ningpo as to which should have pre-cadence. This was the only drawback to the complete success of the celebration.
It remains that we should notice the last of the ceremonies, the performance for children on Saturday afternoon by the Amateur Dramatic Club at the Lyceum. It was intended for children only, ant it is @ matter of some Shontd have considered Uhemselves rise that so many grown-up people
cluded in this invitation, so that children really formed only about two-thirds of the audience. The performance went off most successfully.
It is difficult to know where to begin and where to stop when we attempt to say to whom the thanks of the community are mainly due for the general success of the celebration. Certainly to Mr. Muirhead, the Orator of the Day; to Mr. J. L, Scott, who ably vindicated his right to succeed to the Chairmanship of the Council; to the British Navy, for the cordial assistance one and all of its members here rendered; to the French authorities, for sending their men in the procession; to the ladies, who worked so hard at the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.