To the Editor of the "Nortu-Ciina Dairy News."
Siz,—Apropos of recent articles in your paper on the subject of rents in Hongkong and Shanghai, your readers will perhaps be inter-haps be interested in the following experience, A house, the rent of which I understand is now Tls. 110 per mensem, was advertised to be let on lease, unfurnished. My wife calling to learn full particulars was presented by a coolie with a grubby slip of paper (enclosed) reading Thig house is to lease for a term of two years and two months from July 1. The Tent is Tls. 200 per month. The tenant will have to put up a cash deposit of Tis, 2,400 as a guarantee for the payment of rent. No other terms will be considered from any one.
In view of the large number of men with moderate salaries who urgently need a home, and who find hotels too expensive, and hoarding houses not quite what they desire, it seams to me that deliberate profiteering of this description should be in some way prohibited.
I have waited for some days before writing, is letter, lest my natural indignation prompted me to write in terms unfit for print, and even now it is difficult to describe the nauseous person in parliamentary language.
I am, etc., Shanghai, July 8.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.