Shanghailander, hardly notices how rapid is the development. The old timer, here, will look up at a skyscraper and tell you how such and such a building stood there in the earthquake and subsequent fire of 1906; how such and such a man, worth millions the night before, found himself a pauper the follow: ing morning, but how he has made ood since and is now worth a couple or three million dollars. And 80 on, Men generally do not realize round the Pacific how fast the world moves.
As I have several times pointed out in the "North China," Shanghai and San Francisco are about the same age ax world ports. Of course, both existed long before the year 1842, when Shanghai came into world prominence. Shanghai is one of the old men among cities of the world, beside which San Francisco is a mere chicken. For Shanghai began to be of importance as a place of trade in the 11th
association is concerned its history century, though 0 far as foreign started only in 1882, and its pride rests more upon the memorable struggle which proved to be an empire's deliverance from terrible scourge, the Taiping bellion, In this glorious liberation however, as is pointed out by a of the settlement, Shanghhaj figured as the central point only to remain unpardonably unhonoured and unsung. Shanghai's history—that is, since it was opened to foreign' trade—is a romance, and every foreigner in China ought to know it well.
With San Francisco, also, romance glitters everywhere. The" original site of the city was a grant made by the King of Spain of four square Jengues of land. In the early part of 1849, the year of the famous gold rush, the population was less than 2,000, In the memory of men still living San Francisco was town of flimsy tents and one-sto:
wooden shacks filled with gamblers, merry-makers from the diggings, a few storekeepers and plenty of Mexicans and Indians, And what a place it was!
The buildings were originally all of wood, being built in the Eastern states, brought to Frisco round th Horn,'and set up as wanted. The city hall, with its lofty dome, took 125 years'to build (1875-1900), at a [cost of $8,000,000, and was rebuilt in two (1907-9).' They were the days when men congregated from fall points of the compass, and, in the memorable gold days, ran the whole gamut of human experience. No city on the face of the earth has rebuilt itself after a great catastrophe as has San. Francisco. To the newcomer it is almost inconceivable that less than 20 years ago the city was Inid in ruins." Yet to-day, preserving her old landmarks ax much as possible she has develop ed into one of the finest cities in the world. San Francisco is sym-helical of what can, be done by intense human concentration, In 1906 the calamity that befell this city quickened a spirit among the people that has nowhere been excelled, and rarely equalled. Upon the ruins of the old San Fra has arisen a mightier place, where their imagination has led men on to achieve what would previously have been considered entirely impossi Shanghai and San Francisco have '2 good deal in, common. They are two great-hearted cities, both of {them priding themselves on their un-Jéeniable hospitality to the stranger. 'The men who do things here realize more and more that the wide spaces across the Pacific are being narrowed down, and all countries in the oceanic basin are being brought nearer to each other. Forty years Jago. men embarked' at Shanghai with far more concern to cross to Nagasaki, for example, than they now do to go to the United States or Canada. The Pacific is coming to be regarded more and more as a mere pond, and there are many men engaged in business who have crossed from one of the eastern Pacific ports to Japan and China ports more than a hundred times. And we are just beginning to shorten that dlistanee. The time, will undoubtedly come when there will be a commercial service of aviation connecting the two continent, and it will be a matter of 1 few days only'to eross from China to the American continent, No matter what mistakes America has made in the past in her trade associations on your side of the Pacific, it is certain that her trade must develop more rapidly than any other nation's during the next decade. Axia is America's logical outlet, and for that reason it is desirable that traders on both sides of the "pond" should get to know more about each other and the place where they live and trade.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.