Mar. 15.
ATTENTION: is directed to the growth of Chapei, Shanghai's northern suburb, by a report that Mr. Chang Chien, the leading Chinese industrialist, is here in connexion with the proposal that the district—for at present it is no more—should be elevated to the dignity of a hsien. We are not precisely certain whether ""hsien is the correct term to be applied in this connexion, for the carving out of new magisterial areas in China is somewhat more difficult than the creation of new parishes is in England, where nothing short of an Act of Parliament will suffice. True, there are cases in which smaller subdivisions of the country, the "ting for instance, have in recent years been created hsiens, but in these the only tangible effect has been to increase the importance of the official in charge by giving him the rank of Magistrate. Neighbouring districts have not been called upon to give up any part of their territory for the new hsien. The reverse would be the case in respect of Chapei, for part of its somewhat indeterminate area fies in the hsien of Paoshan, part in the hsien of Kiating and part possibly in the Shanghai hsien. Chapei is simply the old district, the North of the Lock as its translation runs, grown out of all recognition and containing to-day probably between two and three hundred thousand souls.. The Lock referred to seems to have been a barrier at one time existing on the Soochow Creek, for there are two other references to it, one Louza, the Old Lock, the second Ginza, the New Lock. The cha' of Chapei is the same as the ''za'' of. Sinza and Louza, only romanized under a different system, showing that the old lock and then the new jock have played an important part in giving us well-known place names. "North of the Lock' or Chapei is to-day roughly bounded by the Settlement on the south, the Hongkew Creek on the east, the nearer approaches to Kiangwan on the north and & line cutting through Jessfield on the west. To make this a hsien would involve the abandonment by Paoshan and Kiating of very valuable and
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.