To the Editor of the "Norta-Carva Dairy News."
Siz,—I read with interest the effusion of "P.O.Q." in your issue of 13th instant, ani heartily sympathize with him in his unsuccessful quest for houses of a designated number; but when one considers the conglomerate nature of the buildings in Shanghai, frequent rebuilding and the numberless-alleys and passages in which native houses are situated, I think the Council's system of numbering, while by no means perfect, has a lot to commend it. In the course of my business I have to visit both foreign and Chinese houses daily and, being conversant with the system, I seldom find any difficulty in tracing a number which require. The chief difficulty lies in the fact that the occupants of Chinese houses frequently obscure the official numbers by their own signboards, but this would happen whatever system were adopted.
To the uninitiated, such as "P.0.Q." it might be useful to explain the system as I understand Foreign houses. are numbered consecutively from side to side throughout the entire length of a road, with the exception of some of the new roads where the odd and even system has been adopted.
Chinese house numbers are prefixed with a letter which indicates the road to which they are designated. These numbers run consecutively down one side of the road and back the other, taking in such alleyways as have their principal access from the road.
From the Council's latest published returns there are 63,387 Chinese and 4,580 foreign houses in the Settlement and if one system of numbering were adopted both for foreign and Chinese throughout, Mr. Jones, living say at 80 Broadway, would find that his address would probably be changed to 2764 and Mr. Smith of 174 Bubbling Well Road would be transferred to perhaps 2493, and so on, to the utter confusion of every one, including landlords, insurance agents and last but not least the Chinese Post Office.
The numbers affixed on foreign houses might with advantage be larger, but beyond that I sincerely trust that our Concillors will leave well (or fairly well) alone.
I am, ete., INsuRANce.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.