Sm—I am the tenant of a flat in he of the old apartment houses in Rue Molière, a place which many Shanghailanders would merely sneeze at considering the modern buildings "Which have sprüng up in the course of the last few years. Our hot water System is so much out of date that if One of my neighbours decides to have a bath in the morning I have to wait patiently for my turn. Quite Often my cook has to heat sufficient Water to enable me to shave. Lately We have had an incursion of rats due to the ancient construction of the house, and the electric wiring has made me buy more globes in one month than another place would re-Quire ín a year. The flooring has 8ot to the stage that we have to walk En tiptoe in order not to. disturb our neighbours in the apartment below. The locality is more or less peaceful, spárt from a few howling dogs and a musician who has rent the air on His saxophone with the same dismal note throughout the summer. Since the rental up to now has been reasonable we have put up with the above mentioned inconveniences and a few others not mentioned. But the agents for our landlord, a well-known and highly respectable firm of lawyers in this city, recently informed the other tenants and myself that from November 1 the rent would be increased. And it was not a small item either! I suppose they thought they might as well make a job of it since the increase in my case amounts to 33 per cent. Deciding that an increase was fair under the circumstances I wrote and offered io contribute with a reasonable percentage to my landlord's coffee but my offer received no written reply. On November 1, I mailed my cheque and added what even the Shanghai Municipal Council considers a reasonable increas but my cheque was returned with a curt not reiterating the 33 per cent. increase, I know there are innumerable cases in Shanghai, both in the International Settlement and in the French Concession, where owners are taking an unfair advantage of the present shortage of apartments and houses, and I am wondering just how long it will be before tenants will wake up and take some action in the matier. It ought not to be so difficult to form a Tenants' Association and fight against a situation which in my country, and in any other decent country, would not be tolerated by the authorities. Personally I have made up my mind that unless my respectable firm of lawyer-landlord-agents can see their way to be reasonable I shall do my best, or worst, as the case may be, to fight a most unfair and arbitrary action on their part Maybe there are still some tenants with sufficient backbone and energy left willing to bestir themselves and form an Association which some day will be an absolute necessity uni they continue to remain suckers, Kor. Shanghai, Nov, 3.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.