Mass Meeting at Town Hall to Organize for Better Public Utilities special meeting of ratepayers, in connexion with the municipal elections in the French Concession, was held at the French Town Hall on Monday. The raison d'étre of the gathering was to impress upon British and American residents the need for strong ce-operation in the old-standing struggle between the French public utilities company and the Municipality, There was an attendance of nearly 300 people, but it is to be regretted that among them were few of the British or American members of the community. MIN. Chapeaux and A. Arnaud-Coste, Mr. Edward Ezra, Mr. H, BE. Arnhold and Mr. Bruce Lockhart were anon EONS present, the prospective Councillors, Mr. Hugh Martin, Mr. M. Speelman, Dr, E. L, Tartois, and M. P. Ww. +N. Dyer, a member of the Mailly were on the platform. Mr. Council, presided, After referring to the injustices suffered by the ratepayers regarding the Tramway Company's monopoly, Dr. Tartois gave an insight into what all the fights had been about. He said in part:
The Tramway Company durin these 10 years has practically dons nothing. As far og ' electricity is concerned the works at Lokawei produce 30 per cent. of the current required for lighting the Concession. The other 70 per cent. or two thirds of the electricity for lighting consumed in this Conces-are bought by the Company from the Shanghai Municipal Council, _We emphasize electricity "for lighting as, the Company refuses systematically all current for heating and other domestic and industrial uses.
Water Suppty, Inefficient Water Supply.—The present Waterworks have been greatly overworked, and this means that "the least breakdown of the machinery might cause a stoppage of the supply. The water is bad. The Sanitary Department of the Concession ig busy on a thorough analysis of the supply. But in the Meantime personal investigations by myself have proved that all the water contains an astonishingly large amount of bacteria. It 1s surprising that with such water there are not more cases of typhoid fever in. our Concession, There is never an abundance of water, as_ experiments by the French Fire Brigade officials have proved. About tramways, the least said, the better! You are all aware of the lamentable way in which the roads along which the tram-lines run are kept.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.