88 NAMES AND NICKNAMES OF THE 



Lord Granville, to whom Lord Hammond, the permanent 

 head of the Office, reported that the political European sky 

 had never before been so clear. In less than three weeks 

 France and Germany were at war. So in Shanghai. Early 

 in 1853 European residents were congratulating themselves 

 on having at last succeeded in getting practically all the 

 settlement area for their own use. By the middle of 

 September there were many thousands of natives dwelling 

 there, and the idea of an entirely separate foreign area 

 vanished never to return. 



What had happened? This: that in the very early 

 hours of the 7th September, 1853, on the day set apart for 

 special honours to the great sage, Confucius, there had 

 gathered together outside the north gate of the city a band 

 of desperadoes, partly Cantonese, partly Fokien men. 

 Amongst their leaders was a sugar-broker, and an ex-mafoo 

 of Mr. Skinner's of Gibb, Livingstone & Co. On the opening 

 of the gate, these men rushed in, killed the Chihsien, and a 

 few soldiers, captured the Taotai and other officials, and 

 made themselves masters of the situation. They had 

 sympathizers inside who, as soon as they entered, supplied 

 them with pieces of red cloth with which they made them- 

 selves turbans and so became known as the "Oong Deu," or 

 Redheads. For seventeen months they maintained them- 

 selves there spite of repeated attacks on them. It was thus 

 that they effectually prevented our possession of a purely 

 foreign settlement. At the very moment that our pre- 

 decessors were congratulating themselves on having this 

 goal within reach, there were thousands of terror-stricken 

 refugees pouring across our narrow frontier from the city and 

 its suburbs. 



The whole length of the northern bank of the Yangking- 

 pang was crowded with them, all huddled together according 

 to the fashion of such emergencies. Our jetties were sur- 

 rounded by refugee boats. It was impossible to drive them 

 off with the bayonet. We could not force back crowds of 

 women and children upon bands of rowdies bent on taking 

 everything they could from everybody within their power, 

 and capable of massacring all who resisted. It was im- 

 possible, and it was not done; and so it came to pass that 

 the Settlement gained for itself a new name — the "City of 

 Befuge." 



Lack of time prevents my going into more detail regard- 

 ing the right of exclusive residence for foreigners in the 

 settlement. That right, however, was fully entertained in 

 the earlier years, and, as we have seen, down to September, 

 1853, when the Settlement had been open for close on ten 



