LIFE OF SHANGHAI POLICEMAN

Northern Advocate, 8 January 1938, Page 6

LIFE OF SHANGHAI POLICEMAN

[Special Tn “Northern Advocate”! CHRISTCHURCH, This Day.

Twelve years of police duty in Shanghai have been completed by Police Sub-Inspector F. Hancock, who left Lyttelton for London this week on the liner Arawa.

Mr Hancock said the work of the police—or riot squads, as they were usually knbwn in Shanghai—had become very strenuous and complicated. Cosmopolitan.

In the International Settlement the police force consisted of 350 Europeans, 250 Sepoys, 300 Japanese and 2000 Chinese. It could be imagined, said Mr Hancock, that, dealing with so many different races, the police had to use a great amount of tact to prevent trouble and complications. Apart from the damage done to the town by machine-guns and a little bombing, the waterfront and tlie Settlement had not suffered greatly from the Japanese attacks. Crowded Refugees.

The number of refugees entering Shanghai was very great, and, little accommodation being available, they were living mostly in the streets. It was, therefore, little wonder that cholera and other sickness broke out. Sub-Inspector Hancock is visiting England on furlough. Before leaving Shanghai he was stationed in the Yangtse-Poo sector, which, in his own words, was a “pretty hot corner.”