alive-especially when not legally married, so that the father was able to avoid all responsibility. A sense of social shame over a technically illegitimate child was not in itself a common reason for abandoning it. Other dumped babies from poor families had fallen sick; through ignorance they had been denied all treatment, or given unsuitable treatment and then- when apparently dying-left at the doors of the nearest Found- ling Home. More than nine-tenths of all dumped babies were girls, who were likely to become a real financial liability, instead of the investment and source of pride which a son might promise.
16. All the Foundling Homes or Orphanages which received these babies and brought them up, if they lived, were aided indirectly by Government. Four of them received cash grants through the Social Welfare Office (see Appendix 2). It is probable that the family casework described in Chapter VI did result in some babies being brought up by their mothers instead of being abandoned. This and the extension of the Medical Department's infant welfare clinics were the most promising attacks on this whole sad problem.
CHAPTER V
CHILD WELFARE
17. The desperate daily struggle to make a living among large numbers of the families in the Colony's swollen popula- tion, and the thousands of children unable to get any schooling created special child welfare problems. The Hong Kong Family Welfare Society and other voluntary agencies interested in general relief did a great deal for the children of the families with whom their work brought them into contact. But throughout the whole period with which this report deals it was Hong Kong's misfortune that there was no voluntary organiza- tion which devoted itself primarily to the care and protection of children not sheltered in an orphanage.
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