SHANGHAI SETTLEMENTS 89* 



years. But in view of present native claims and aspirations- 

 it is well to be assured regarding the historic standing of the- 

 place. When the 1854 Land Regulations were signed, 

 refugees were already within settlement limits, but there was 

 probably no thought of their remaining there permanently. 

 Indeed we find in the preamble of the 1869 Regulations 

 that the settlements are described as "the land set apart 

 by the Chinese authorities for the residence of foreigners." 

 The sequestration, therefore, was as much a native as a 

 foreign act. It is indeed further declared that these regula- 

 tions were settled "in conjunction with His Excellency Woo, 

 the Chief Local Authority representing the Chinese Govern- 

 ment at Shanghai." 



Furthermore, the schedule of the China and Japan Order 

 in Council, 1881, speaks of the Land Eegulations "for the 

 Foreign Quarter of Shanghai, north of the Yangkingpang. " 

 The official position, therefore, seems clear. 



The refugee movement which began in the fifties wa& 

 further extended to almost its fullest possible extent in the- 

 sixties when the "long-haired" Taipings were carrying fire- 

 and sword throughout the province. For ten long years they 

 had been spreading havoc through three-fourths of the pro- 

 vinces of China. The tale has often been told, and we may 

 well shorten it now. The cup of China's sorrow was well- 

 nigh full in those days. The war brought on by Viceroy Yeh, 

 the war of which the occasion, not the cause, was the incident 

 of the lorcha, "Arrow," had run its course by the end of 

 1860. It was on the 29th June that year that Soochow fell 

 into the hands of the rebels, then at the zenith of their power. 

 The effect was seen on the Soochow Creek. There was. 

 collected a seething mass of hysterical humanity. City 

 people, town people, village people, the people of hamlets, 

 and isolated farms, all fleeing from the wrath then coming. 

 It was the same on all the waterways leading to the City of 

 Refuge. By thousands and hundreds of thousands they 

 came, old and young, rich and poor. Our 470 acres were 

 estimated to* contain a full half million souls. Land values 

 were rushed up to fabulous prices. The rich were willing to 

 pay unheard-of sums for mere safety — the only safety China 

 afforded, the safety of a foreign settlement. 



This was all the more secure just then because both 

 British and French Governments had decided to leave de- 

 tachments of troops to garrison the place, and in time to 

 secure the neutrality of the far-famed Thirty Mile Radius 

 round it. Those were the days of General Ward, of Colonel 

 Gordon, and the "Ever Victorious Army" whose memorial 

 stands in the Public Garden. Only once did the Taipings- 



