The autumnal touch in the air these early morning is sufficient proof that summer has really gone, and that pleasanter days will soon be here. Not that this year's summer has been a particularly bad one. Indeed it has been comparatively cool with only a few days of undue humidity. The large amount of rain which fell during the late spring and early summer was ündoubtedly responsible for keeping the streets fairly clean at a.time of overcrowding, when the accumulation of filth was a very great danger to health, and though the cholera epidemic was serious enough, it is a happy fact that Shanghai escaped a worse affliction, From a health point of view it is to be anticipated that the city will present very much the same problems as, those of last autumn and winter, and with any luck at all they should prove no graver. That is to be hoped for, because there is still an enormous amount of surplus popu-Jation in the city, which is likely to remain until conditions in the surrounding areas are very much better than they are at present. Probably the chief difficulties with which Shanghai will have to contend during the coming months will centre around questions of living conditions, and particularly that of heating. Much anxiety has already been caused by the increase in the price of coal and the possibility of further increases, and at the moment there does not appear to be any relief in sight, There is something in the contention that the Municipal Council might investigate what can be done in the matter, and, if it is at all possible to obtain supplies at a reasonable price, something should certainly be done in the matter. The case of the small salaried man is becoming increasingly serious. Increases in the rates of utility services may not inflict much hardship on the man drawing a substantial remuneration, but on those whose monthly income is below say $500 the increases already provided for, together with the undeniable rise in the cost of domestically produced foodstuffs, are creating heavy burden with which he is ill-able to cope, while for most of them imported foodstuffs are already almost out of the question.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.