Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1900-07-30
RICH AND RI0ToUS
SHANGHAI, WEALTHIEST AND
WICKEDEST CITY IN CHINA.
A COMMERCIAL EMPORIUM
City of Half Million Souls-Head-
quarters for Reformers and Mis-
sionaries-Reputation for I'm
morality MISUNDERSTANDING
Scenes in This Place of Gilded Sin.


morality Widespread-Ha
Scenes in This Place of Gilded Sin.
Association Secretary Robert E.
Lewis of the international committee
of Young Mems Christian Associations,
resident of Shanghai, has sent the
following letter to his friends in the
United States descriptive of Shanghai,
which he asserts is 'the Wealthiest and
wickedest city in China"
AS he knows China pretty well and
is familiar with celestial ways and
habits, it can be depended upon that he
is not far out Of the way in his state
ments. This missive is dated April %:
zone feels the limitations of
language when he tries to convey to
occidentals an adequate picture of an
eastern city. To say that the COM
merce of Boston, the second port in
the United States, will give some in
dication of the business of a city which
has been created during the last fifty
years.
LAS / rode along the harpor '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, Japanese and
American were out to the breeze. !
went along the four miles of the
wharves and the ceaseless activity, the
crashing of iron, the tumbling of bales
| of cotton, hemp, cloth, nuts and -four;
| the clink of tins of kerosene and the
hurly- burly of excited Chinese pas
sengers almost persuaded one that he
was not in the sloW-moving orient.
cat the dry docks thousands of ham
mers were shaping obstinate iron into
graceful ships. l saw passengers met
at the gangway of steamers by wheel
barrows to take their baggage and by
overgrown baby carts for their own
conveyance. I saw tall, sWarthy Sikh
policemen 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 stronger
than ever that where east and west
mingle there are ludicrous combina-
tions, intense struggling for mastery,
mountains of merchandise changing
hands, and, above all, an open door for
the fiend as well 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 instance, as reside in
all Japan, yet Shanghai is largely
made up of Chinese. The population
Of the foreign settlements is under the
rule of American, English, German
and French institutions Native mer-
chants, bankers, shopkeepers, literati
and retired officials crowd into 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 macada-
mixed streets, electric light, modern
sewerage and water supply, careful
policing, and are saved from much of
the differing and Fostering of the
mandarinate.
Great Commercial Center.
| Shanghai is the center Of the great
customs, railway, telegraph and postal
| administrations Of the awakened gov
eminent. 1t is the headquarters as
we'll as the asylum for the reformers,
who will some day cause China to cut
| loose from a dead past. Here are the
| headquarters of the modern news
papers, of the great publishing and
! literary societies, of the bible and mis-
sionary agencies which grapple with
| national problems. This is the meet
! ing place of the national missionary
and church councils which wrestle
with the problems 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 in
/
rating the prodigal son. do not say
| that he went into far country, but
that he went to Shanghai and there
spent his substance in riotous living
"Shanghai's reputation for wicked
ness is even more widespread than it's
repute for trade. The scores of Ameri-
can and Japanese women who are on
! the market; the hundreds of Chinese
women who haunt Foocrow road and
make it impossible for decent woman
to live in that section; the immense
opium palaces; the rum dives; the silk
| robed wretchednes which parades the
streets in rubber-tired carriages
these are living proofs that the devil
has not lost the art of making life
hell. This is no exaggeration; l am