distribution of dry rations amounted to nearly 2,000 daily. It is noticeable that children formed some 70% of those helped with relief food. Other services afforded by the six welfare centres of the Social Welfare Office included the writing of letters for illiterates, the reference to hospitals of those in need of medical attention and a variety of miscellaneous services akin to those provided by a Citizens' Advice Bureau. The increase in this work resulted from the growing pressure of population, which is now largely due to natural causes. (See Appendix XI).
56. Home visits and interviews carried out by Relief Section Staff included casework on 700 cases of attempted suicide. The majority of these were driven to this extreme by poverty, which lay at the bottom of most of the family dis- turbances, and was also the predominant cause of ill-health. It has not been possible to obtain accurate figures of successful suicides, so that the total of attempts (successful and unsuccess- ful) is not known. There did not seem to be any real connexion between the time of year and the number of suicides, although they did show a tendency to rise shortly before or after the Chinese New Year, the traditional season for the settling of debts. Only slightly more women than men sought this way out of their difficulties. (See Appendix XII).
57. The department runs two relief camps, whose population remained more or less constant throughout the year. North Point Camp serves a number of purposes: it serves as a transit centre for Distressed British Subjects and other nationals awaiting repatriation, many of whom have come to Hong Kong after a lifetime spent in China, and for prospective entrants to the Centre for the Physically Handicapped at Lantao, and for those inmates of the Centre who have returned to Hong Kong for medical treatment; it affords temporary accommodation for the victims of shipwreck, for those arrested for begging, and for destitute convalescents; and it serves as a more permanent home for the destitute blind, for mentally deficient children, and for the aged who have nobody to support them. Clothing, bedding and three meals a day are provided. In fact, through- out the year, North Point Camp, as in former years, remained a complicated combination of a home for the aged, a transient
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