is Occupied From Our Own Correspondent, Harbin, Jan, 15.
The number of suicides among Russians taking place daily in Harbin is really appalling. Strychnine, opium, cocaine, or acetic acid are employed in the majority of cases, though revolvers are sometimes: used, especially in case of former officers. During the past week, at least a score of persons have taken their own lives, due to mental depression in most instances, almost all being particularly sad cases. In one instance, an elderly apothecary, working for a mere pittance, swallowed strychnine on learning that several members of his family had died from hunger whilst others had written him for pecuniary help, which he was nable to give. A young: man, a former officer, employed ao a railway militiaman, and earning $30 a month, shot himself because he was neither able to go back to Russia nor send any assistance to his parents there.
It must not be imagined that there are no charitable organizations ini Harbin, for they are so numerous that it is impossible to give a list and al] are doing very good work. The trouble is that there are thousands who require assistance, for they are unable te get. work of any sort. Trade and commerce are stagnant, and even large "firms, both wholesale and retail, are living from hand to mouth. Retrenchment is taking place everywhere, including the Chinese Eastern Railway, which has in the past given employment to so many. Residents in the Far East have gained some experience of the deluge created by Russian. refugees from Vladivostok, but they can have no conception of what is in store for them if the alarm is sounded that the Reds are about to occupy the C.E.R. area. It is impossible to convince a great number of Russians that it is better for them to stay where they are and that starvation stares them in the face if they move further eastward. One always gets the same reply, "Oh, you are a foreigner and, not being a Russian, the Commissars will leave you alone."
I am assured by Russians who know and who have' no sympathy. with Bolshevism, that a goodly percentage of those who evacuated Vladivostok had absolutely no real reasons for doing so, for they had neither taken part in_ any active campaign against the Reds nor had! they meddle with politics. They simply were led by others and by fairy tales that they could do better elsewhere. They are generally desirable lot of people, willing to work out their own salvation and their great wish is to emigrate.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.