That remarkable nonagenarian, Shanghai is 95 today, for on November 17, 1843, Sir Henry Pottinger on his way to Nanking, stopped over at Shanghai selected a site for ihe British Concession, and declared the port open to trade. The first British officials in Shanghai were Captain Balfour of the Madras Artillery, and Dr. W. H. Medhurst, interpreter, who had landed here eight days previously from a small steamer which had brought them from the Chusan islands, which it was at one time thought Britain would select as a place for settlement, There was nothing but a mud flat to be seen, dotted here and there with villages, some of which still remain tucked away in the heart of this great city. There was a path along the Whangpoo used for towing junks and away to the south was the walled city in which as late as 1845, the British officials and a dozen foreign residents, merchants or Protestant missionaries, were still living. But the energy of the British was not to be denied, and one of the footnotes to the "Histoire de la Concession Francaise de Changhai" by Messrs. Eh. B.-Maybon and Jean Fredet, records that on July 11, 1847 the Jesuit Father Roze wrote "The English town which has arisen as if by magic is a real prodigy. They do not construct European houses here, but sumptuous palaces of all kinds." Undoubtedly that was something of an exaggeration, but the passage does pay a tribute to the energy which was being displayed by the early pioneers. The offices of the British Consulate were already established in the English Concession the Victoria Hotel was standing where there is now the Palace Hotel, and the "veritable palaces" of the English merchants of Italian, Greek or Middle Age architecture, astonished the French missionary from the interior with the rapidity with which they had arisen on the desolate flats. The Consulate itself was to be built later, in 1849, for in order to establish their right" of free movement the British insisted that the Consul should have his residence in the Chinese City.
One of these days someone will write a really fine history of the British endeavour in Shanghai, and how the foundations of this great city were well and truly laid in those very early days, when the energy and vitality of the newcomers of all nationalities commenced a growth which was to make Shanghai one of the most important cities in the world. There were many mistakes made, chiefly owing to a lack of understanding of the potentialities of the place, and that is best shown in the success of the old contention that roads wide enough to permit two bales of silk to pass each other were ample for the requirements of the place. Looking back, and realizing what has happened in Shanghai during the last quarter of a century, and the expensive efforts which are continually being made to deal with the city's growing traffic, the conclusion is inevitable that Shanghai, like Topsy, "just growed." There is no evidence of any long term planning, but the city forefathers appear to have dealt with their troubles at all times with the un-denying thought that they were not to be here. for ever and consequently the future was none of their concern, The British had to have their race course—as a matter of fact three different ones in the 95 years—their theatre—though that for some years was merely whatever godown was available for the purpose at the time—and their Church, and then, with a few roads with completely English names, like Rope Walk and Park Lane to give the place a homely atmosphere, Shanghai settled down to the task of becoming great. It has been a remarkable achieve-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.