92 NAMES AND NICKNAMES OF THE 



great administrative work carried on here has well deserved 

 the epithet "model." 



If we turn to the administration of justice, the same is 

 true. For the first twenty years and more our only British 

 judges were Consuls, With assessors in serious cases. Pro- 

 fessional lawyers sometimes waxed merry over amateur law, 

 much as a practised wine merchant might over a client who 

 took Marsala to be the finest sherry. But the retort in both 

 cases might have been similar. "I know what I like! ' 

 That the Shanghai resident was satisfied with the decisions 

 given by the Consular Court is proved by the very few 

 appeals against them, and by the still fewer that were 

 successful. Increasing trade and ever-growing responsi- 

 bilities led in time to the establishment of a Supreme Court, 

 and in comparatively recent times, when Sir Nicholas 

 Hannen was here, it was once more proved how delicate 

 and even incompatible are the combined duties of a man 

 who may first have to advise, then judge, and possibly 

 condemn, those who come to him. Our Mixed Courts were 

 born of refugee happenings in 1853-4-5 and the early sixties. 



Again, Shanghai has been a model in the way in which 

 at times it has carried on its extremely complicated and 

 difficult diplomatic work. When it is remembered that the 

 old familiar coach and horses might easily have been driven 

 through our early treaties, when we think of the force of 

 anti-foreign feeling — in ourselves as well as in others — we 

 cannot be too grateful for the combined delicacy, justice, 

 tact, and firmness of our Consular and Diplomatic represen- 

 tatives, and the fairness with which, in the majority of cases, 

 they have been supported by their colleagues and met by the 

 native officials. There is the accumulation of our local 

 custom or common law as proof of this. 



Furthermore, Shanghai is deserving of the compliment 

 implied in the word "model" if only for the enterprise 

 exhibited by its residents. I once visited the railway centre 

 at Tongshan. It was then the proud possessor of a club, 

 a race-course, a place of worship, a Masonic Hall, a rifle 

 association, and various other social institutions, though the 

 last census, including the newly arrived baby, showed a grand 

 total of but 75 souls ! It was in much the same fashion that 

 our early settlers began to develop Shanghai. A church, a 

 chapel, a Masonic Hall, followed the construction of those 

 comfortable, airy, wide-verandahed, garden-girt dwellings of 

 which some few remain to this present. Books and chess 

 maintained men's mental powers: fives, bowls, cricket, 



