The Rickshaw Aspect To the Editor of the "Normu-Cinwa Dany News Sm—Regarding the S3CP, new parking scheme f must confess 1 have ttle interest. But passing along the south side of Hankow Road. this morning by the Custom House, where Parking is forbidden before noon, 1 noticed lined up six public and three private "rickshaws, "They "occupied about as much of the road as the some number of cars, The ears must not park here, the rickshaws. may.
Crossing Nanking Road at Szechuen Road yesterday, like a law-abiding citizen T waited until the green light appeared, but when the signal was given T could not eross on the marked portion which Is for foot passengers as It was crowded right across with rickshaws and bicycles, So T had walt in the middle of the road. Two policemen were on duty at this point.
T must say that in trying to solve the so-called traMe problem T think the police are beginning at the wrong fend, and it fs my opinion that If they were to concentrate on the rickshaws and hand-carts the motor-car trate would be able to look after {tself for some time to come without the need for further rules and regulations, The almost total elimination of the rickshaw In Japan was no problem at all, It could not compete with the cheap taxi, tu Shanghai, when a company applied to the Council for permission to put cheap cara on the Foods, a scheme which would have automatically solved the rickshaw problem. it was turned down, What is behind the Council's refusal no one seems to know.
As to the number of rickshaws be-Sng In excess of what [x required, should put it at nearly 80 per cent. One has only to walk along the Bund from Edward VII {othe Public Garden and one will be accosted anything from a dozen to twenty time and at the same time note the num= ber of rickshaws plying for hire this short distance, many of them parked and others' walking slowly, which is about the same thing. One will find there are 50 or 60 of them, not counting those on the water-side. Tt seems to me that a five per cent, reduction would make no appreciable difference.
My sympathies are entirely with the puller, but T cannot help thinking that he would be botter off working fon the land where he came from. He would get something to eat, and that Is about all he gets hero, and betimes all too little, but he would Yeading a life fess like an animal and certainly living in more healthful surroundings.
Shanghai, Sept, 20. your Saturday issue (presumably with the idea of authenticating the ridley lous story that a family of sparrows followed Commander and Mrs, Bolton across the Pacific), My feeling fs that the Photographs prove conclualvely that the story 1s quite unture—as, indeed, it must be—tor the reasons which lio, aot shew top photograph showing a bird Gif tt ts one) being fed by hand, proves nothing; anyone can train bird to feed from the hand, and {t is quite impossible to say what 1s being fed in this cas The lower photograph ts not too clear, but T think Tecan say without {ear of contradiction that the sparrow the Chinese tree sparrow-—which the common house sparrow of China; the neck and face markings are certainly not the markings of Passer domestics which would be the only house sparrow to be found Kansas City, Mo, if there could be any possible doubt about this {dentl-Seation, tt could be cleared up in a minute by production of the actual The position then appears to be that either (a) Commander and Mrs, Bolton are putting up a deliberate hoax on the public for their own Seceived into believing that the various sparrows which come to their garden, house, or ship are the same birds which are following them round because they have become attached to them: such a belief is quite possible, because one sparrow Is almost exactly ko another of the same kind: but the kind of sparrow which would be found round the houses in America 4s not exactly Uke the kind which we Gnd round our houses in China, and that is where the story falls to pieces quite apart from its utter impos After all, there are tens thousands of sparrows In every city in China and we can all have our families of "Beeps" if we want them; all we do on arrival ina new place is to put some crumbs outside the window and—hey prestol—there a Mrs, Boop and all the Boop family walling (0 greet us trust this explanation will be roceived in the spirit In which it Intended, and more particularly by teachers' and others who are trying to impart some knowledge of birds to children, Shanghai, Oct, 3.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.