The atrocious state of the Soochow Creek is a very old grievance, but antiquity is no justification. Few foreigners go near it except those who must, but any who do must be amazed thata waterway so narrow, unkempt and unregulated continues to be tolerated in the midst of a popwous manu district to which its condition a matter of vital importance. Further it will be remarked that, while on the International side the creek has been well bunded and the utmost possible done for it, in the Chapei part it remains as it may have been hundreds of years ago. There lies the trouble. The creek is under Chinese Government control. Therefore it goes undredged, unregulated, a continual cause of delay and quarrelling. As a fair guess, the dead Jaodah in the Petterson case not improbably lost his life in some fight resulting from a jam of beals such as is described elsewhere to-day. The Customs River Police do what they can to keep the passage c! but their numbers are too insignificant for an, effective regulation. The Whangpoo Conservancy Board has included the Soochow Creek in its dreams of a single port authority for the Shanghai district. Something of the kind is badly needed. The creek ought to be dredged, bunded, have rules of the road enforced and a limit put on the number of boats allowed in it within certain boundaries at the same time. Tt is only one out of ten thousand similar examples—of official ineptitude that might be quoted. But being here in the heart of Shanghai it ought to stand a better chance of redress.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.