It seems to be a general conspiracy to accompany every action and movement by the loudest demonstration of vocal or physical appeal possible. Napoleon, itis said, rarely slept more than four hours a night, and could sleep under a cannon when it was fired. During the Great War, hundreds of thousands of tired and exhausted men found slumber in similar conditions, but there is great difference between such a strain on physical resistance and the case of the highly accolorated character of a person's nerve existence ina busy city like Shanghai, People are able to sleep through periods of loud explosion, whereas the drip of the bathroom {ap, or the continual tapping of a blind means the worst agonies of! sleeplessness.
The Central district dweller has to be proof against irritations infinite variety, Trafic noises are! not the chief irritant, because people are born and live to this accompaniment. There is the noise of new building construction, against which there is little redress. There are the cries of coolies who are unable to work without some sort of chorus. The alleyways dividing buildings seem to be regular factories for all types, of labour. The city dweller is able to dis tinguish whether kerosene tins are being flattened out for the manufacture of domestic utensils, or if somebody is breaking up boxes for: firewood. 'There is the question of! repairs, "As the offices are fully' occupied during the day, with their thousands of busy employees, repairs cannot be effected until after office hours, or during the' week-tend, when the city dwellers' repose: should be sacrosanct. One draws the impression that, in spite of the sturdy and massive construction buildings in the Central district, they suffer from a type of architeetural dyspepsia the cure for which is the vigorous application of a hammer and chisel to hard _concrete surfaces. There is also the annoying chorus of whistles and sirens on the Whangpoo, and! especially one factory siren in the vicinity of Pootung which howls with fiendish horror on a sort of triple extension note which makes the former Fire Brigade ambulance siren a thing of sweetness and beauty. In such an atmosphere and surroundings, these unsung heroes of Shanghai live, adding their support and stability to the community and hoping that an era of blessed peace and quietness some day will arrive.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.