Another example of the difficulty of carrying on the details of city life is afforded by a common spectacle at Shanghai. In the crowded streets you see a little crowd of policemen. The group consists of three splendid men, typical of three different {101} civilisations. First there is the English policeman; next to him is a black-bearded man, bigger than the first, a Sikh, every gesture and action revealing the martial characteristics of his race; then a Chinaman completes the group, blue-coated and wearing a queue and a round Chinese hat as a sign of office. The traveller wonders why this trio is needed till he sees them in action. A motor car rushes down one road, a ricksha comes down another, and a Chinese wheelbarrow with six women sitting on it slowly progresses down a third. All three conveyances are controlled by Chinamen, and when they meet, all shout and shriek at the top of their voices; no one keeps the rule of the road, with the probable result that the wheelbarrow is upset, the ricksha is forced against the wall, and the motor car pulled up dead. Then the police force comes into action. The Chinese policeman objurgates vociferously and makes signals indifferently to everybody; the Sikh policeman at once begins to thrash the Chinese coolie; meanwhile the English policeman at last gets the traffic on the right side of the road, quiets his subordinates, sees justice done, and restores order. Possibly if the matter had been left to the Chinese policeman, he would have arranged it in the end; the traffic in Peking was controlled entirely by Chinese policemen and was fairly well managed. There is an extraordinary example of the want of consideration for the feelings of the Chinese to {102} be seen in the public gardens at Shanghai. There stands a notice which contains, among several regulations, first, that "no dogs or bicycles shall be admitted"; secondly, that "no Chinese shall be admitted except servants in attendance on foreigners." Considering that the land is Chinese soil, one cannot but wonder that any one who had dealings with the Chinese should allow so ill-mannered a notice to be put up. No Chinese gentleman would object for a moment if the notice had been to the effect that unclean persons and beggars should be excluded from the gardens; but to exclude the cultured Chinese merchant who is every whit as clean as his Western neighbour, or to exclude the respectable people of the middle class whose orderly behaviour is beyond suspicion, is as unreasonable as it is regrettable.