Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-06-01

ne'e that shanghai ID British COLONY, whereas
the fun lies in the fact that it IL simply some
land leased in perpetuity from the emperor Of
China. ana that II Is possible Ut any moment
It may be the case to-day for all know-that
majority OF those serving the guns are nom
British subjects. But this II only for the jokes
SAKE: Inc volunteers get great praise from the
ofnclsi inspector each year and they may be
called upon to protect British lives and prop
erty at any moment. So the war Office did
wise thing after all, only now America in her
turn should send them Maxim gun.
THE SOCIAL LIFE OF SHANGHAI
Is the natural outgrowth Of its republican insti.
tutions. It is democratic and characterized by
a tolerant good fellowship. Upon this point a
| well-known lady was kind enough to set me
right I'm Shanghai" she explained. "every-
body is equal. In Hongkong everybody is not
equal There are those Of us who call at gov
eminent house and those who do not" After
SO lucid an analysis it was impossible to err.
Society lives in its shirt Observation-Disclosures
| speaking OF course, for actually it is an ex-
| tremely well-dressed community. All male
Shanghai meets in the club--one Of the most
comfortable and complete in the world-before
tifin and before dinner, to exchange news.
make up dinner parties, and do business-all
three with equal zest And the bar
there is as long as ships deck, cock
tails only cost four cents apiece. and you
and have it. Men are known by their nick
names and doubt If ''the Legal Brother" and
The Boy" and .Buggins," and many others
can remember the time when they were
iamliiary called by the names Of the mothers
| that bore them. And the hospitality of Shang-
nal is another surprise: You might as well at
| tempt to give your shadow the slip as to escape
| from the gratuitous good cheer of the Model
Settlement. But although the hospitality of
Shanghai has winged feet and the "penguin-
juice" Of one of its tables "a wonderful Bur
| gundy which flows from the vitals of a WON
| derful crystal bird) is known throughout the
length and breadth of the China seas, it has
other ideals aud cherishes at least a few sacred
with blush Of pride how Mazzini had once
kissed him.
FINE SPORTS.
And as for sport, on the whole Shanghai is
ahead of the east. 1t has its char ming country
club, its races twice year, its regatta, when
the Chinese authorities stop all the native
| traffic on the river, its polo its two cricket
clubs, its base ball and its shooting parties in
households up the Yangtsze to the hills 20
| miles away. And on Saturday afternoons il
you walk out to the Bubbling Well about
| o'clock you can see the finish of the paper hunt
| and dozen well-mounted and scrupulousy
dressed jockeys come riding in to the finish and
taking rather bad fence and ditch which has
been carefully prepared with the object of re-
celving half of them in the sight of their fair
friends. Finally, there are the hounds and
their excellent master, 'the Prophet" And
| what matter il slanderous tradition fret their
| fair fame, to the effect that once upon time.
| discardlng the deceptive anniseed-bag, fox
| was imported from Japan, and that the end of
| that hunting-day was that one-half the pack
ran into an unlucky chow-dog and broke him
| up. and the other half chased Chinese boy for
| his life, while the master stood upon O grave
mound winding his horn to deserted land
| scape.
| COMMERCIAL SHANGHAI
Commercially, Shanghai is not quite so pros
| porous as it was few years ago. At least it
| complains OF hard times. German COMPETE
ton, Chinese competition, the great falling off
| in the China tea trade, even the detention of
shipping on the bar at Woosung-all these are
| freely spoken of as contributing to the general
| dizziness OF trade, but as Shanghai still does
nearly sixty-two per cent of the import trade
| OF all the treaty ports, and thirty
nine per cent of the export trade,
she rests upon very solid commercial basis
equanlmity. The commercial matter which
was specially instructed to investigate at Shang-
| han had aroused. found vastly less interest in
the far east than at home 1 mean the Barker
Mitzkiewicz concessions for an American
Chinese bank, the telephone, a system of rail-
| ways, &c, &c. The Shanghai correspondent
| OF the Standard, clever young Irishman named
Mr.. O'Shea of the reporting staff of the infiu-
| entail North China Daily Ne,rs, managed to
| keep us all at home talking and writing Of this
i
himself would now be among the first to de-
clare that his native enthusiasm and apprecia-
ton OF the picturesque led him to excite us all
rather unnecessarily about it. The shares of
| the Hongkong and Shanghai bank fell consid-
erably. am told, at the time, but this was
probably only in the ordinary course of specu-
lation in them.
CONCESSIONS.
To begin with, the concessions" were re-
garded here as of little value, if of any at all;
everybody reflected that English capitalists
could lend money just as cheaply as Americans;
| the well-informed knew that the Chinese are
| much too wary and suspicious to give anybody
| big blank cheque in the way Of elastic 'con-
cesslons;' they remembered that Americans
| have had comparatively very little experience
| OF financial dealings with this peculiar people,
| among whom "old custom" is paramount: SO
| that the wisest onlookers here Kept perfectly
| calm and advised everybody to let the new
| scheme have all the rope it desired And this
| advice was 30 far good that, although the state
ment was authoritatively made to me at ITEM
| Tsin that the undertaking was about to be re-
| vived on simpler scale with the addition of
London capital, you never hear the subject
| mentioned here, and the only proof of its brief
| existence is a brass plate among a number of
| others in side street in Shanghai, inscribed
The American and Oriental Trust, Wharton
Barker, President" Nobody connected with
the enterprise has come out 80 far any the bet
| ter III reputation, and his excellency Ii Hung
Chang, 10 probably the only one who has
emerged the better in pocket
Hrrpv Nop~Av