The Shanghai Rotary Club held its usual weekly tiffin re-union on Friday at the Metropole Hotel, and the members of the club listened with great interest to a most instructive ud informative address by Mr. S. H. Peek on one of the most pressing, problems which Shanghai has to face 'Taking for his subject the theme that "Shanghai is over-crowded", the Speaker of the day dealt at great Jength with "Housing conditions in the. International Settlement', and said: "Nearly three centuries ago Sir Christopher Wren, the great architect of his time—bullder of St. Paul's Cathedral and many other famous "edifices in. London—looked upon what was left of that city after the Great Fire of 1666, and sai "Give me leave, and 1 will build upon this charred ruin a city that will be the wonder of the world."
"Surely a most desirable thing, said the authorities of his day, but the cost will be too great! And for the past three hundred years, in London and other big cities through-Jout the world, those who have wanted to provide between housing "condi tions for the masses have been met with the same stereotyped reply fine idea but (thinking only Of money and not in terms of human happiness) too costly! But, every year the need for sweeping reform grows greater and more imtrative. Something must be "done to abolish the "slums which industrialism has brought in its train, the longer it is delayed the eater' the cost—in money, health happiness—will be.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.