The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1906-03-06
ODDITIES OF SHANGHAI
NEER RDo-WELLs AND BUSINESS
FAILURES PLENTIFUL
All Trades Have Bold AngIes-ou~er
Ways Of Buying and Selling.
Foreigners With Gold
Bricks

/
almost at the end of the earth. Moral
ly, one can say without any hesita-
ton il is at the end 2nd in all the
world has but one competitor for evil,
and that is Port Said, says tine Chica-
go News. The two are neck and neck
for laurels of this description. Shang-
hal is the final bit of dead water to
which the flotsam and jetsam of the
stream of life seems 10 drift for the
final step in utter -stagnation. Here
Remittance men, are thick. These un-
happy creatures are black sheep,
younger sons and other undesirable
members of the well-to-do families
who are allowed so many pounds a
quarter by their loving friends on the
sole condition that the cash is to be
paid anywhere ''east of the canal"
So they drift along through India,
down through the native states of the
Malay peninsula and with short stops
at Singapore and Hongkong they lay
up for their final collapse in Shanghi,
where they meet shoals of their fell
lows tapping up bad whiskey and so
da at the bars of the various hotels,
according to the recentness of the last
allowances.
Next we find large colony of alleg-
ed business men who have failed 10
make good in all other quarters OF
the globe and who have come out to
China to sell some one gold brick.
These two classes form the matrix
of the foreign unattached residents.
Then we have the men who are \actu-
| ally attached to real business houses
with their home Offices i'm the states.
These are for the most part doing
short sentences and are respectable.
Lastly we have the Shanghai business
man, who is one of the most strenuous
gentlemen of his kind to be seen the
world over. He speculates in shares,
of which there are an enormous var
iety in Shanghai, and by dealing in
which one may easily go broke These
| brokers spend their time tearing up
and down The Bund in their victorias
| drawn by China ponies. They always
| ride with one foot on the step in or
! der to save time in getting in and out.
At II O'Clock every one begins to drift
toward the Shanghai club and by noon
the bar is packed By o'clock the
| rush is over and only the dead remain,
| cached away on sofas here and there
where they have fallen after the bat
| tie. At o'clock the rush begins again
and lasts until the small hours in the
morning. Everybody in Shanghi
| drinks, mostly to excess. ~
! Shanghai is hte> only place that
know of where the-young men with in
comes from $50 to 500 a month are
able to spend twice that sum in q week
on their establishments. Yet this seems
| to be the case. This remarkable way
of living is fostered by the chit" sys-.
| tenn. Chits are small pads of paper
con which one writes an /. o. u for
| any commodity or %service conceiv-
able. Any man who has a Job can
sign chits at almost any bar, store
or dive in Shanghi.
| If they are successful. in their spec
ulations) they pay their chits and all
goes well. If they fail and are unable
to beg, borrow or steal the means
to meet their obligations they either
kill themselves or go to Cheefoo or
Tientsin, until the trouble blows over,
which 1t soon does, as there are so
many others in the same boat. VI
| The wealthy men of the place are
mostly youngish fellows of the kind
| described who have prospered in their.
investments. These so in heavily for
all sorts of deals and speculations.
The methods of doing business are
quaint and. to the westerner, some
what erratie. Every man who is con-
nected even in the most remote way a
business deal comes in for squeeze
of some sort. / knew of a case last
year where one man had boat to sell
and another man who had learned the
description of the boat-for the name,
of principals are withheld by the mid
| dlemen, lest the latter be cut out en-
| tirely-was eager to snap ii up for
use in blockade running. The only
man who could bring the two together
declined to do so unless he were paid
a lump sum of $1,000. II you meet
man and he intoduces you TO another
'Man who makes you acquainted with a
| third man who sells you a commo-
| dity, numbers one and two block all
| negotiations until the seller consents
to share the spoils with them. The
result is that after business deal has
gone through many hands there are
SO many to be considered that no one
gets much out of it.
The bigger the CRATER the better his
stand in Shanghi, that is, until he
fails. and then he falls from grace and
becomes a laughing stock to his
friends