Municipal departments have not permitted to go unheeded íhe probblem of the condition of the streets in the Settlement, The worsening of conditions, so far as they appear to the eye, is primarily attributable, of course, to the emergency which has compressed a large proportion of the population of the Greater Shanghai Area into the very restricted limits of two districts of the Settlement, The potential dongers from disease and overcrowding have thus inevitably become aggravated.
It is not, however, admitted that actual public health conditions have. in fact, worsened to a degree to cause any alarm to the public health authorities of the Settlement, Whilst there is a relation between visible dirt, which attracts the public eye, and sanitation as the latter concerns public health, the former is not necessarily a true index of the latter. In other words, the present populous conditions of the streets have not been proved to have any connection with the spread of disease, thanks to the successful preventive measures of the Public Health Department, Dete the high potentialities, Shanghai during the period January 1 to February 12 had only thirteen cases and two deaths from smallpox. In connection with this disease the Public Health and Police departments are collaborating with a view to vaccinating refugees living in alleyways, while at the same time not slackening their efforts to obtain their removal to refugee camps.
The visible evidence of dirt on the streets and pavements, attributable as it has been said to factors related to the congested population, is in a measure due to the loading and unloading of cargo on The Bund on the former grass plots. In wet weather the trucks bring mud on their wheels on to the carriageway and this is transferred by pedestrian feet to the pavements. Even if the streets are properly cleaned early in the morning a few thousand more feet walking on the pavements proence more visible dirt. A further difficulty is the present lack of the usual type of cleansing brooms, for which the available bamboo brooms ure not a good substitute for the removal of fine dust on the roads and 4n the channels, As warmer weather approaches, flushing and watering will be resorted to for the purpose of reducing the amount of dust on the roads.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.