From a dingy ofüce in Nantao in 1895 to the present Civic Centre, the history of the Chinese municipal administration during the past 42 years was traced by a spokesman of the Shanghai City Government in an interview with a representative of the ^Nortb-China Daily News" yesterday.
The first office was established by the Manchu regime for the sole purpose of building the 38 mow of Nantao Bund. The Bund was completed two years later and the office was handed over to the city's civic leaders in October, 1897, when efforts towards self-government were invitiated. (Nantao was then divided into seven districts and other municipal affairs were undertaken, Like Nantao, Woosung's first "municipal" office, established in 1690, concentrated. on road-construction. In 1904, Chapei's office for public works was established. The first "municipality" for Pootung was in the form of a sea-wall construction bureau established by leading residents in Pootung,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.