Unpaid bill

In a recent trip to an antic market, I ran into a large stack of old papers. They were sketches and drawing from an unknown artist. I was not really interested... but my friend was. He looked at all the drawings one by one, spending so much time with them that I was already moving a few vendors down the line. He called me back and pointed out to these three envelops that he found but had no idea what they were. One of them is the picture on the left hand side. On the envelops was written "Compagnie Francaise de Tramways et d'Eclairage Electrique de Shanghai", i.e. Tranmways and Electric Lighting company of Shanghai. These three little envelops, contains three electricity bills from May, June and July 1949. As China was liberated by the communist party in October 1949, they were amongst the very last ones to be sent with this company mentionned. The bills themselves are in English and Chinese, with no French writing except being called "Facture" and the phone number indicated as "Téléphone". Just seeing the name of the company written in French is like a living proof of the very existence of the French concession. Details and daily life objects like this make history become so much more real.
The electricity company address (Avenue Dubail, Now Chongqing Nan lu) probably does not exist anymore. The whole Avenue Dubail has been destroyed in the 90's to build the famous flyover motorways of Shanghai... but the address to whom this was send maybe still exist. Route Cohen (now Gaoan Lu) is very near from my street, Route Kaufmann (now Anting Lu). I have not checked out yet whether the house at 256 still exists, but it's funny to imagine the face of the house owner, seeing me coming with those unpaid bills from 60 years ago. This is only daydreaming, as the receiver of these electricity bills have probably been chased of their house long ago. In any case, after a second look I realized that the bills have actually been settled in July 1949. No chance of collecting any money from this old bill, but just looking at it is still fascinating.