Of the many little problems which the Traffic Department of the Municipal Police has the pleasant task of attempting to solve, that of educating the Chinese in street craft is not the least difficult. The experience of years must have taught some thousands of the populace a few of the finer points in traffic negotiation, and one begins to observe that the slow process of education is taking effect, though there are still some few thousands of them who persist in the belief that the middle of the Nanki Road is an ideal spot for meditation. With a view to removing this pleasing illusion, the Traffic Department is carrying out an interesting programme of education by posters. These are being displayed throughout the Settlement, and are intended to convey to the Chinese mind that the crossing of a crowded thoroughfare is fraught with some little danger to the person who refuses to keep his eyes open, and get a move on. For example, one of the notices reads:
Don't add to the death roll.
Keep your eyes open."
Another has this picturesque invitation to be careful:
Like a tiger's mouth is the roadway. You had better keep away from the centre of it."
"Teeming with motor cars is this spot,"" another exhortation runs. "Walk cautiously, or your head may be hurt." Again: "This road is intended for horses and vehicles, and only for pedestrians when they wish to cross the street."
Notices such as these are being posted on the electric light standards and elsewhere in all prominent places, as well as in the tea houses where, with the aid of suitably striking pictures to point the moral of the story, they should provide good matter for discussion.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.