Another big step has been taken in our lively business city towards civilisation. First the Jaunches, used occasionally by mandarins, made us long for that mode of rapid travel and now we have three aunch Jines between here and Chinkiang. Then we were startled by the report that & foreign drawbridge was to be built across the Canal, and we could hardly believe our ears when it was said our old conservative official (the 'Tsaota') had built it. The bridge has done d service and though the officials and ilerati. are conservative, from our point of view, and have not come round to the comforts of a stove and other things, they nevertheless like some things that sre good, as evinced by one of them having bought a rubber air-mattress for his sick wife. Open the country to foreign things and the people will take hield. The next step waa the pearance of advertisements and signboards of foreign hongs having headquarters in Shanghai, How strange to read a foreign hong-sign in English and Chinese both, as one walks down some of the streets of this place
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.