"The Industrial and Labour Information," a publication issued by the International Labour Office of League' of Nations, in recording the sessions of the League's labour organization, says:
"Mie, Heine (Government dclerate, hina sai that afe the Wahine een "made "me the" vaocial, fold Ino" china. "He refereed gticlar to the Decree of March 29, a88, embodying: various, measures, for Inbor'resulation, and added that China Intended "todo all im hor power promote social progress,"
Mr. Hsino's statement will all friends of China ically, for there is much room for progress in labour legisla~ tion in this country a for the betterment of soci conditions. The regulations Which he referred are well-written and deal with the subject fully. But it would also. be interesting to find instances where the regulations were made effective and where anything has been done by any agency of the Chinese Government to improve the condition of the Chinese worker. In a recent Teader, we called attention to the need for the Chitiese Government to do something in this field and expressed the hope that the authorities of Kiangsu and Chekiang provinces would take steps to cooperate with the authorities Shanghai for making effective the recommendations inthe report of the Child Labour Commission of the Shanghai Municipal Council. Thus far, there are no evidences of such ce-operation being forthcoming. The labourer of China is still the shower of wood he always was, ex-opt infinitely worse, for in' his village he was under the paternal-Istie care of a clan chief, Now nobody cares for him, Crime as an Asset 'There has been a tendency at Home in recent years for some newspapers—particularly a certain section of the Sunday' press—to place the convicted murderer and the criminal before the public in such a light as to suggest that having committed a specially brutal murder or being an undoubted criminal or 'a wholesale swindler constitutes as much a virtue as a fault, and that the person who commits a grave offence against society far from being a villain, is something of a hero, Readers of Home newspapers have been treated, during the Inst fow years, to the reminiscences of murderers waiting to be hanged and of convicted criminals serving their sentences, so much so that' to wonder when inal bent ly an asset, after all. A few weeks ago a man named Vaquier was condemned - to death]
murdering an innkeeper, with wife he had been maintaining an immoral liaison, by putting: strychnine in his Its. Murder by poisoning, as the judge pointed out to Vaquier when passing sentence, is the basest and most detestable of all crimes. It invariably is accompanied by a cold, calculating, cruel cunning; is influ: itoly worse morally than killing a person in the heat of an argument or quarrel; and places the murderer in a cowardly, contemptible class of his own, quite beyond the pale of reasonable men and women. Yet what do we find? No sooner has Vaquier been condemned than a Sunday paper comes out with a character sketch of him, presented ly and in such a manner as that Vaquier, condemned for one of the most horrible of all crimes, is a much-misunderstood man, possessing most of the essential virtues., There is no mention of the detestable deed for which he was sentenced to die. The head-
Tines to the article—"Dreamer, Humorist and Man of Affairs:
Versatile Frenchman Writes in Brixton about Blue Anchor, 'I Pray for Pardon and Pardon Those Who the man has written, and tells us that he is "an alert, good-looking smart man of affairs," that "he adds to his "social attractions a keen sense of honour," that "his. signature is a work of art, embellished with more flourishes than Charles Dickens' own," that "no one with 4 commonplace mind could use signature like that," and that persevering and headstrong' begin to wonder. whether we' have not made a mistake and that instead lof reading about a murderer of the basest kind we are being pon-picture of some noble character. Truly, if there is much more of this kind of thing, the cult of murder and lesser crime would appear to have a promising field of its own, not completely unallied with some sorts of journalism.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.