Premiei, ity Shanghai for the North last Friday.
Work is proceeding apace on the dome of the new building of the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank, With the placing in position of the girders for the dome, the last of une steel work for the bank was practically finished. During the past few days workmen have been engaged covering the steel trame-work with wooden planking, this being done to enable the concrete work to be proceeded with. {fhe dome will be of concrete and will be surmounted by a gilt ball. Owing to the raassive nature of the premises the height of the dome hardly impresses itself upon the onlooker, but during the past few days while workmen have been seen upon it there has been a much better chance to gauge its distance from the ground, the men being absolutely dwarfed by its size.
Tue success attending the first open-air symphony concert of the Municipal Orchestra on Saturday evening at Hongkew Park was a direct contradiction to the frequent assertion that the Shanghai public is not a music loving one. Many more people sat through a performance of the "Peer Gynt" Suite, extracts from Madame Butterfly," the Unifinished Symphong of Schubert and other programme music than_ usually came to the Town Hall to hear the Sunday concerts. Such pieces as the famous Unfinished Symphony are hardly of the ideal type for open-air concerts in ordinary circumstances, but, owing to the wise provision by the Council of a sound magnifying device similar to those installed in the local dance halls, it was possible to catch even the most far-away strains of the music.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.