1939-01-13 — Page 18

THE HONGKONG TE LEGRAPII, FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 1939...

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CASE No. 2489

NOT

DID

SURVIVE

Perhaps the tone of this article is not

pleasant.

ut the

"Telegraph" prints it

By

in order to draw attention to the other A Staff

half of the world we Hongkong people Reporter

live in, and to plead for a worthy cause.

IN OUR RESPONSE to

the appeals for assis- tance for refugees from China we are apt to forget the whole tragedy affecting a great section of our own people-a tragedy which has influx of destitute new- comers from the war torn areas of China,

Before me as I write lies the Annual Report of the Hongkong Society for the Protection of facts here, Children. Cold

Hongkong Telegraph. nothing more-Case Numbers

that each tell a tragedy-and

Wyndham St., Hongkong what ugly figures they are.

'Phone 26615 January 13, 1939

THE SUEZ CANAL THE THREAT by Egypt's Minister of Finance that the Suez Canal concession will be renewed when it expires twenty years hence is probably an idle one. Egypt would be involved in claims for immediate payment, in cash, of compensa- tion exceeding £1,200,000,000 were she to attempt to take over the canal herself,

The threat

from

Italy

Here is a family of five living on $9 a month, of which they pay $2 for a bedspace which they tako turna to occupy.

another family of six living on $6 a month, baby, Buf- fering from marasmus and tuber- culosis due to lack of food, dies widow with four children pleads for help after twice being arrested and Aned for hawking without a licence, her sole means of gaining a livelihood .. the list goes on and

сп.

WIDOW with four children, ail

A five starving. They have no

ters,

an

A whisky-soda? Man, the price of two whisky-sodas was the average monthly income of every Case dealt with by the Society in 1918.

Incidentally, the average was the lowest in the Society's history. In 1032, the Average income for 'a month of a family was $2.83. Lant year it was only $1.57.

Try and Imagine that Two thou- sand and fifteen familles last year

11 month ilved on an average of $1.07

why they ate the rice cach. That's that gave them beri-beri, and why they died like flies. Not even like nies. For a fly usually has his belly full when he dies.

When I sald 2,016 families, I was referring to thoso handled last year. by the Society,

Ils revenue for 1938 was only $28,121. For instance, it received sufficient money to buy only $6,000 worth of milk foods and cod liver oll, Medicine, hawiters' licences and other relict took $3,000.

*

PACE IS FOUND in the Society's

Annual Report for only 20 of the 2015 cases dealt with last year. In these 20 cases the words "ar- rested for hawking without a licence" is used no less than 13 times-that is, in nearly half the cases members of the family ran foul of the pollee for trying to obtain a living by sell-

things in the street.

Some people would say that the police could be better employed, that the money wasted in arresting, charging, detalning, ferding and Im prisoning the unlucky hawker would go a long way towards alleviating distress among the poverty-stricken If diverted to proper channels. For the arrest of a hawkter does not rest with his or her being marched up to the police station by an Indian Con. Habic. A European Inspector there to note down the particulars on the Crime Sheet, a warder looks after the arrested person in the lock-

except other policeman are required to at-

they-look after their babies so well and then, after the conviction, there that only four in each thousand die to the prison, where the hawker is in the first year of life), has the most again surrounded by a bevy of om-

He hawks too near Indian you DIDN'T know, did you, that terrible infant mortality of any coun- cials, and fed and housed for any-

γου

a man can be sent to prison for try for its Chinese children. Each thing up to a month. constable and is arrested.

Prison may await this lad-whose trying to sell newspapers in the year, of every thousand bables born, only crime is that he sought food strect. The Lato calls that a crime, 350 dle.

for his family. The law in Hong- unless the man buys himself a licence.. kong makce no distinction between first. Just to make sure that too

Fortunate

for the youth that the Society for

the

or the other things that hawkers sell,

*

But the purpose of this article is not to cover so wide a field as that provided by the hawking problem.

where to live except in the street. Conjure up a vision of this case- Case No. C.267 in the Society's files. The widow is an earth-coolic-she works for ten cents a day carrying earth. But she can no longer work, is probably more immediate, her frail, under nourished form is for she has been particularly unequal to the strain imposed upon inalatent of late in her demands it. The eldest boy--twolve years of nge-desperately hawks some of for a share in the Suez Canal their meagre belongings in the

The Society paid his ball so that for European babies la cleaner than up, the Indian, an Inspector and on- which Britain streets in the hopes of selling rome he could mother his four pitiful any country in the world Company--in owns 390,000 of the 800,000 thing to buy food for his mother bundies, of rags and bones. Next Australia and New Zealand (where tend to the case before a Magistrate shares and for a reduction of and his younger brothers and sis day the Society poid his fine. its dues. In this demand she has been supported by Germany and, of course, by Japan, whose appetites are similar. It has, however, become a specifically

fashion, the "survival of the fit TT 18 to plead for more generous Italian demand for two reasons: the person who attempts to cara hlu many people don't sell newspapers, IT'S WHAT we call, in our mug

Nature!

struggling to fuld the Colony's most since her conquest of Abyssinia livelihood by selling a Chinese news the number of liemees issued each test." We call it one of the laws of support for a Society that is

We blame God for many things, worthy cause.

It is to ask that you divert one Italy's share of trade passing paper, and the one who gains it by year la strictly limited. pilfering or stealing. through the canal has risen to

make up the hundreds of cases crime we tolerate in our midst one-hundredth of the sum you spend cach year on pleasure and entertain- second place and she finds the the Protection of Children heard of F COURSE, the children who but to blame Him for this terrible

his case. He was reclaimed from

tion of Children. Or to ask you to duea, which must be paid in clutches of the law and sent to dealt with each year by the Society

pleasant reading truth can be smolce one cigarette a day less and sterling, a heavy strain on her the Chinn Youth Society, where he for the Protection of Children should VOU MAY FIND this article un- ment to the Society for the Protec-

achool. The mother and consider themselves lucicy. They're finances; also, since the Aby's now attends ached until the mother alive, aren't they? They've survived unpleasant and this is the truth. probably be instrumental in saving sinian

has War. she been was well enough again to go to work the first hurdle escaped the clutches Phone the Society for the Protec-

of them before they reach the age Annual Report and peruse it when much savings to the Society's Trex- haunted by the fear that Britain found for her by the Society. Case of death that claims thirty per cent. tion of Children for a copy of their one or two lives by sending just that

of twelve months,

you sit by your warm are to-night, surer. and France may close the canal No. C.257 was closed,

You didn't know that, either, did Keep your mind off the fact that the

every coal consumed by that fire in four IT to her shipping in time of war.

There is actually a strong case OR TAKE Case No. A.2480, re you? More than one out

ported to the Society by a mem- four babies born in Hongkong dies hours represents sufficient wealth for that the Suez Canal, like other ber of the Women's Auxiliary when before it reaches the age of one year, the Society to cheat death of another international waterways, should two ile girls, aged 11 and 3, were This Colony, whose infant mortality young life.

arrested for hawking and begging. be put under proper inter- The mother was an unlicensed old baby. control. But thero hawker, with a month

beri-beri. nationa!

She was suffering from seems no good reason, beyond you do not know what beri-bori is? the general desire for appease-Eat Insufficient food, and make what rice. You can get enough for one returnment, to grant Italy (or for that food you do cat the cheapest type of matter Germany or Japan) a cent to give you a meal, and berl- share in the present manage-beri. Incidentally, you'll die before

long. ment. None of these Powers

The mother In case No. 2489 was walk when the Society her. Her poor, withered cares for the interests of found believes in international control unable to

month old baby. other countries; and if Britain breasts were unable to feed her and France have little right to a monopoly of control, Italy, has less.

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or

The two girls begged-just once- to get enough money to buy a bottle of milit for the dying baby, They were arrested.

The Society was too late to save the baby. It died. They saved the

mother.

D

If international control of waterways is of such terrific im- portance to the totalitarians,

TO real more? About will Germany and Italy support Wase No. C.183. This

was bed-space, Japan in demanding that the

family who occupied a United States should withdraw Which means that six people lived families. Their share of this room from the Panama Canal? We in a room, occupied by another ten was a narrow space, probably six could imagine the reaction in Washington if such were made. feet long by three feet wide by four

fect highl Yet it is just as logical.

Naturally there was no light, and Britain depends upon the there was only a little hot, foetid air. Europeans would consider it a the Panama Canal as much, pro-living, grave-this home of

abon bably, as Japan or Germany do family of alx. Lack of sun

brought

The father was for hawking. He Britain does not seem to have arrestedala any qualms regarding American tried to earn a few cents by selling Chinese newspapers.. The mother administration of the vital was in hospital. The Society was waterway that links the Pacific If the polled court when the, fafier's ones, was called. He told B Blittl and Atlantic oceans.

upon the Suez Canal. Yet brought uberculos, lack of 1000.

GRIN AND BEAR IT

By Lichty

"Now mind, Colwell-just snip the price tags of the inexpensivo

`presenti!"

•

•

I'LL JUST quote the Society's Re-

port by way of conclusion:,

not

"The Society is maintaining four eentres. But four centres are enough. The value of the centres varies inversely as the distance be- tween them and the homes of the mothers. Buses and trams are not for those who seek the Society's help. A long walk to the nearest centre may involve the loss of a day's wage which, with an income rate of less than $2 per head in family, connot lightly be foregone. The mother has to decide between the day's wage and the child's treatment, which may be B

& malter of a few minutes each day but our day after day will the death the mother rescue it

handicapped fcars ΟΣ from the

of

adolescence which is the chief cause poverty, crime and disease and therefore of importance to the com- munity as

whole.

"But a centre costs more than $5,000 a year and, with the excep tion of 1936, the Society has spent more than its income each year from 1932

믿어요

Onwards.

the

present

esent, efficiency, of the Society's restricted efforts are ever approximate to that effectiveness. of which adequacy of scale is an essential conditien, new centres must be brought into being.

Two now centres would require an addition to the Society's Income of $10,000 and in 1930 we chail alm at a total Income at $40,000. We shall not be appealing for an inde finite sum with which something will be done, but for $40,000 to carry on with

our present commitments and. establish two centres in places more accessible than those now ex- isting

The Government grant of $5,000 amounts to approximately 8 centi for each dollar aceruing in.1938 from

50 other sources...... An- increase. in cents per dollar, would have, crablad the opening of une mbre· sorely noedod centre,"