To the Editor of the "Nortu-Cursa Daly News."
Sin,—May I add any witness to that of "Rate and Taxpayer" and others, as to the nuisances of various kinds caused by factories? Personally I live a little too far north to be much disturbed by the Nanyang Bros. and the H. A. Manufacturing Company's employces, but I venture to think my neighbours and I are in still worse case. Little "Chinese factories spring up like mushrooms around us, and each new one gets a hooter. Each factory has a different idea about the time, and the result must be heard to be believed. It is no exaggeration to say that from 4.30 a.m., when one is rudely awake ened by the first blast, till 5 o'clock, pandemonium reigns, the hooters like the rats of Hamelin town, performing "in 50 different sharps and flats." Some are outside the Settlenient limits, and therefore untouchable by atr legislation, but the worst are the much nearer ones, inside the Settlement.
The time would seem to have come when the inhabitants of thi neighbourhood should petition the S.M.C. to blow a municipal hooter for the lot, if indeed hooters are indispensable.
Again, lest perchance when these noises cease one might fall asleep, follow the hawkers of dainties to the "shifts" bawling to people five or six feet awny as if they were half a mile distant, and then the noisy chatter of the "shifts" themselves.
Tt is coming to this: that we who also have our living to get, must forswear all delights in the evening at home and abroad and go to bed at 8.0 or 9 p.m. if haply we can, in spite of evening noises, get enough sleep to doo. r,-work on. There are people in."e part where I live whose health is being seriously affected by these ho ible conditions, but apparently each one feels he is but one and wit can one (he thinks) accomplish? The moral certainty is:' "Let us all emulate the hooters, making a long noise and a strong noise and a noise all together and make it till we have awakened those who can deliver us.""
Enclosing my card, I an, ete., AwotHer Rats anp Taxpayer.
Shanghai, Oct. 22.
To the Editor of the "Norta-Caiwa Datty News."
Sir,—With further reference to my letter of Tuesday last, October 19, I would mention I have received a letter of sympathy, and I suppose my neighbouring householders have also, from the president of H. A. Manufacturing Ca. for which I thank him, stating that their two first floors have been purchased by Nanyang Tobacco Ca. and that it is the employees of the said com-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.