St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1900-06-13
Letter from Shanghai.

Letter from Shanghai.
The Wealthiest and Wickedest City of
China.-What the ". Nh. G. A. rs DOing
there.-An Inviting Field for Christian
Workers.
Correspondence of the CALEDoNIAN.)
One feels the limitations of Ian
guage when he tries to convey to
Occidentals an adequate picture OF
an Eastern city. To say that the
commerce of Shanghai very nearly
equals the commerce of Boston, the
second port in the United States, will
give some Indicate of the business
Of city which has been created
during the last fifty years.
AS Irode along the harbor.front on
my wheel, this morning, there were
thirty-four steamers and eight men,
of-war at anchor. Though the
British flag predominated, yet the
French, Russian, German, Chinese,
Austrian, Italian, Norwegian, Japan
csc, and American were out to the
breeze. went along the four miles
of wharves, and the ceaseless activity,
the crashing of iron, the sing song of
the coolies, the rolling and tumbling
of bales of cotton, hemp, cloth, nuts
and flour; the clink of tins of ker-
osene, and the hurly-burly of excited
Chinese passengers, almost persuaded
one that he was not in the slow
moving Orient. At the dry docks,
thousands of hammers were shaping
obstinate iron into graceful ships. l
saw passengers met at the gang.way
Of steamers by wheelbarrows to
take their luggage, and by over
grown baby-carts for their own con-
veyauce. | saw a tall, swarthy Sikh
policeman keeping order in the midst
of babel, and then took my course
among the great Offices, warehouses,
hongs, and godowns which crowd
the city. The conviction was strong
err than ever that where East and
West mingle there are ludicrOus COM
binations, intense struggling for
mastery, mountains of merchandise
changing hands, and, above all, an
open door for the fiend as we'll as the
saint to enter the land.
Shanghai has about 100000
people in the combined native and
foreign settlements. Though there
are about as many Europeans and
Americans in this one city, for in
stance, as reside in all Japan, yet
Shanghai is largely made up of Chi
nese. The population of the foreign
settlements is under the rule sof
English, German, and
French institutions. Native mer-
chants. bankers, shop-keepers, lit
craft, and retired officials crowd in
to this section, in order to be under
foreign jurisdiction. They consider
it vastly more desirable than to live
in the native city. Here they have
macadamized streets, electric lights,
modern sewerage and water supply,
careful policing, and are saved from
much of the pilfering and Fostering
of the mandarinate.
Shanghai is the centre of the great
customs, railway, telegraph and
postal administrations of the awak-
ened government. 1t is the head
quarters as we'll as the asylum for
the reformers who will some day
cause China to cut loose from dead
past. Here are the headquarters OF
the modern newspapers, of the great
publishing and literary societies, OF
the Bible and missionary agencies
which grapple with national prob
lens. This the meeting'place of the
national missionary and church
councils which wrestle with the prob
lens of evangelizing fourth part of
the worlds people.
But this model city is model only
on the exterior. Wealth has not
meant righteousness, and order has
not produced purity. It's reputation
for immortality is national. | have
been repeatedly told, in the distant
interior, that Chinese pastors, in mar
rating the Prodigal Son, do not say
that he went into far country, but
that he went to Shanghai and there