While the Settlement and the French Concession generally were dry yesterday after the unusual rainfall over the week-end, considerable bodies of flood water existed in the extra-Settlement district to the west of Shanghai yesterday. In Great Western Road and environs at least two feet of water covered a large area and showed little indication of subsidence. - Letters from residents of this district received by the journal stated that yesterday there was as much as four feet of water and little hope, judging by evaporation measurements, of any immediate disappearance. On another page will be found the explanation of the Commissioner of Public Works for a situation which constitutes a serious problem for the Municipal authorities. In the Central district, a type of "face lifting" operation has practically dispensed with the flood menace and drainage throughout the rest of the foreign areas resulted in effective drying-up. The floods are confined to the extra-Settlement territory where a number of conditions are involved. Five. and a half inches of rain over the week-end comprises about a quarter of the year's rainfall to date, but when these extra-Settlement roads were constructed no liberal drainage was anticipated. When the Chinese City Government was created it was found impossible to proceed with any extensive system and no large capital sums were allocated for the purpose. Another difficulty rests in the tremendous factory and other building activity in this district resulting in the choking of the creeks, which are Shanghai's principal drainage system, and faced with such an emergency as the recent deluge only bare facilities for the run-off of the flood waters exist. The Municipal authorities are applying themselves diligently to the problem but at present it possesses such difficulties that no official pronouncement on the course of remedial measures is immediately possible. It is one of those problems born of the peculiar political and administrative foundation of Shanghai.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.