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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 22, 1959)
'7fr'r;7..'- . V Bombay, Seaport , Population Trebled During Last 20 Years Bombay (DPD - Le than three centuries ago, Bombay a was part of the dowry when a Portuguese princess mar ried a British king, but he found it so barren and un profitable he gave it away. Today, Bombay is the "Crossroads to the East," a gongested seaport city of busi nessmen, boot leggers and people whose only homes are the pavement on which they sleep. It is a city without much of a past. Hardly anything with in its municipal limits is more than 300 years old. Even most of its real estate was not here 200 years ago.' Modern Bom bay consists of hundreds of acres reclaimed from the Arabian Sea. While other Asian cities are proud of their temples, walls and stone Buddhas reputedly thousands of years old, about the oldest thing in Bombay is a crumbling Portuguese fort erected just 350 years ago. Swamps, Jungles When the wide - ranging Portuguese colonists arrived here in the 16th century, Bom bay was a settlement of rock, awamps and jungles, consist- ' ing of seven small islands oc cupied by a dozen small fish ing villages. In 1661, King Charles II of England married the Infanta Catherina, and the Portuguese gave Bombay to the British as part of the princess's dowry. Finding it "an unprofitable possession," Charles desper ately handed over Bombay to the British East India Com pany, which had colonized the rest of India. Bombay's popu lation then was 10,000, and its annual revenue a mere $30, 000. 1 . In the last half century, Bombay has exploded into a city of 3.2 million. Its popu lation has trebled in the last 20 years alone, and today the city has 700,000 dirt - poor pavement dwellers who live and sleep on the streets.; There Is nothing . anyone can do "All The Homes I MdWill l-love Eleciric Heat." Alt. Once Given City .(noun about them; there Is just no place to house them. The city's growth has been unplanned and erratic. The 1 t$mS& .W2& mSm-- SfeaSSgBSaSiMto III Milt rMXte:-.vJ LIFE IN BOMBAY - Although new govern ment markets are available, peddlers find it cheaper and easier to sell fruits and vege tables in the streets in Bombay, top picture. -The presence of dirt and germs in nearby Shasta Contractor says. Robert Pettus, Mt. Shasta Contractor, has electric heat in his own new home. This is not surprising, since Mr. Pettus says: "All the houses I have built, and all those I am planning, ivill have electric heat" Mr. Pettus mentions the low installation cost of oloctric heating systems as one reason for his preference. He also likes the safety and the cloanlincss af electric heat. '"While other types of heat smoke up walls directly above heaters, and eventually get the whole house, with electric heat you don't worry about repainting . or decorating because of smoke." Mr. Pottus is Just ono omany buildors in the State of Jefferson, who prefer electric heat in their own homes and in tho homos they build. fat, exit COP 00 (4 Away, Mow Busy, Congested as 'Crossroads of the East municipality counts 144 slum i areas within its limits. -Before the government could act, 1 3,500 factories sprang up. The I t urn ymmmz r- fww! 114 Puctit fait m tr. . i i order barring any more new industries in the city was un necessary; there is no more room. gutters deters neither buyer or seller. Tre mendous congestion also makes Bombay a city of 7000,00 pavement sleepers, lower photo, who sleep, eat, and propagate in the streets. (UPI, Telephoto) v33Nb f S?; i ,J I : ( Situated on a. narrow, two- mile broad tongue of land pointing south from the In dian mainland into the Arab ian Sea, Bombay's growth has been longitudinal. From end to end, post-war growth has stretched it an incredible 31 miles. The pres sure on space is so intense, there are hardly a dozen parks in the city. Its bustling busi ness center is entirely in the southernmost tip, where rents are astronomically high. . To pay their house rent workers are being pushed far ther and farther into the northern suburbs. During of fice hours, suburban trains, packed beyond capacity, bring more than half a million com muters into the city, hundreds hanging precariously on the running boards. .. . Group Panics The Bombay State Govern ment's study group oh Great er Bombay has frankly pan icked at this uncontrollable growth, In June it reported: "Apart from 700,000 pave ment dwellers, and people liv ing in nooks and crannies, under public bridges and over head passes,' under staircases, along the fringes between park walls and public streets, large masses of the population live in desperate conditions of overcrowding at the rate of nine persons and even more per 100 sq. ft., of floor space.". In the worst areas of the slums the population density is 1,362 per acre. The city's streets are so con gested with more than 30,000 vehicles of all kinds that the study group said, "The physi cal limits of flie streets have now been reached and no more public buses can pos sibly be added to the existing 1,000 without bringing all traffic to a dead halt." Teen-Agers Descend Attracted by the lure of the OUR BEST SELLING 58-PIEpE AUSTATE ELECTRIC w f TRAIIi SET THUNDERING S 1.1 0 K E PUFFING DOWII M. " (CTOjfDl(? THE TRACK TO ANY BOY'S HEART. C M I CALnJLAjC I hurry! our best-seiler (OfOJ &Q3S2!BSGBE)(3s) returns to Ifs original pries ) Q Q Ah ;--S. .. oM9.88 offer this sale! LZJzJ : & mSSZI , ":f FOUR DAYS ONLY! ! Harmless smoke refills included. city lights, several hundred thousand teen - agers of both sexes descend on Bombay every year. Although numer ous .industries, tenements and places of entertainment go up every year, there are not enough jobs for everyone. Sooner or later, the girls turn to prostitution, while the boys become procurers or rum-runners. C i r c u inventing Bombay's state-ordered prohibition has become lucrative. -Making il licit liquor is a cottage indus try large enough, some say, to merit a .loan from the World Bank. The central Indian govern ment has its eye. on Bombay as the most vigorous and fast est growing city in the coun try. One of its suburbs, called Trombay, has two modern oil BOMBAY HOVELS - Latest estimates indicate that, more than 300,000 of Bombay's poor live in hovels. such as thesej made of flattened kerosene cans and decayed bits of can vas. The only "slum clearance" work-in-. Bombay, is. done thunders over sturdy VUII9IIW iiviis j; 24 rigidly constructed frestfes, made .to take hard knocks. Tough metal die-cast engine has realistic piston action, gleaming headlight. Just soy 'Charge It" en SRC refineries, a modern naval base for the Indian navy, an atomic energy plant with two reactors and a projected naval ordnance depot to manufac ture torpedoes and naval shells. Strategic Spot All this makes Bombay the most strategic single spot in the whole country. Finding oil nearby has added to its im portance..' - r Due to the enormous need for living space, no building is demolished intentionally; however old It may be. Resi dents of condemned, overage buildings continue -to stay on, as there is nowhere" else they can go. The only "slum clear ance" work is done by the monsoons, which cause dozens of structures to collapse every year. . " . :. . 4n 1 2 . . . use as a 3CVPAY CHARGE . MAIL TRIBUNE, Medford, Or. B Tliurtdiy, Oct. 22, TM Bison Get Along; With Farm Cattle Ogden, N.Y. 0JPD Mr; and Mrs-. -James Ryan, owners" of Shamrock, Farm, assured the passing motorist he wasn't see ing things-there - really are buffalo grazing on their Jand. The ; bison, one male ' and one female, ' were . purchased along with a herd of Holstein cattle by Jerome Miller of Spencerport, who rents part of the Ryan pasture, " . K Miller said the man- who sold them to hint said they were three years old and had been given to him by. a zoo when the animals were still calves ' : Miller-said he bought the bison . because "they're some by the annual monsoons, which devastate the shanty towns wherever they hit. But 'the' inhabitants, having no other place to go, are' forced to ;remain and rebuilt their hovels. (UPI Telephoto) " " imbing locomotive and 4 J cars race around down grades, over 26 feet of roadbed with 24-piece over 'n' under trestle set! Powerful - 50-watt transformer. 26-ft of Track fough sfeel curved and 1 1 straight fc tions for speeds boys like! Forward, Revrs . Trans former powerful unit has built in circuit breaker shuts off if train accidentally derails. or take many months te pmf m thing different." They', were tame, he said, since they had been raised with cows. Farmer Ryan reported that the other cows on his farm were startled when the bison were first sent into the pas-, ture, but 'they get along fine how." ACCOMPLICE San Rafael, Calif (CPD -A highway patrol car chasing a speeder swerved to avoid a ; deer and crashed into a tree here recently. The two offi cers suffered minor injuries. The, speeder and the deer escaped, x .- curves, up 'n f'f JACKSON AT BIDDLE ROA IN MEDFORD 9:30 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. D mi J Monday and Friday Evenings Till 9:00 P.M. i. .
