Tue pinching weather of the past few weeks brings up again the question of provision for those among the poor Chinese who make up at this season the inevitable category of the destitute. About this time Inst winter, the energetic action of a committee of charity had provided for these in a way highly satisfactory; helping to free our streets of a prominent and disagreeable feature, and doing so ina manner that fostered real charity while it tended to diminish professional mendicaucy. So well did the Refuge scheme work, that, in the absence of y movement from without, the Muniial Council have very properly taken tup this season, and willcarryit on from the charitable vote passed by the Ratoers, supplemented by subscriptions.
believe, for the size and population of the foreign settlements, we are not greatly afflicted with beggars; but we are not altogether free, and we have a greater proportion of destitute natives than may generally be found in the towns and villages of China, It has been said that Shanghai repro. sents, to-the people of China generally, a business metropolis to which the ideas of London held by provincial entry form a fitting parallel at tome. The settlements are famed, far aswell as near, forthe wealth they contain, the business carried on, the industries they employ, and "ibe fitable field they offer for labour. 16 result is that, though those, who labour are well paid, there is such a confluence of all classes to this common centre, that many willing to work find the positions they seek to occupy already filled. - Business is not always so proaperous, either, that those who have been lucky enough to secure a position are not occasionally driven therefrom to ahambler walk, or condemned to a succession of misfortunes ending in beggary. Besides the willing, there are the useless, members of society, and last of all the parasitic—the true professional beggar—all attracted. by the same quarry. We have been informed that an enquiry pursued among about two thousand, taken up at various times by the pole, whose names, occupations, and native places were gistered, showed them to have come from distant provinces, and that nearly all had- been attracted by the fame of Shanghai's prosperity. Their statements might be comprised in a narrow circle of reasons' for their presence in Shanghai. One had come from Nanking to get work; another to find a friend; a batch of four came because they heard it was a good place toaiee fa the country they could obtain for rs, and the great majority
no work. Five-sixths of the whole were of those who could not find employment, the majority being people unfit for coolie work, from literary men and doctors to the lower grades of tradesmen. The tide of starving humanity wells as winter: goes on;
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.