Nosopy who lived through the days of the Great House Famine in Shanghai will easily forget them. A few lucky ones had long leases, likely to tide them over until, the public being satisfied, prices might return to more reasonable levels. Those on monthly or yearly tenancies experienced all the horrors of East End rackrenting. We even heard of key-money being charged and our correspondence columns teemed with denunciation of landlord rapacity. But on the whole those who had houses were the lucky ones. Cases were actually not unknown of total strangers calling at ''desirable residences'"' to inquire whether the occupants were likely to be going Home soon and, if so, what would they graciously take for their house?
Whether it was some unusually fertile brain in this office or a contributor to our correspondence page who invented the '"'little wooden hut'' solution, we cannot now recall. The possibilities of building in timber, as a remedy for the then abnormal costs of brick and stone, or of importing ready-made frame houses from America, which can be put to-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.