Hongkong has for the past two weeks been agitated about the number of people who in the present chilly weather there have to sleep out of doors. They are beggars, the halt, the lame, the blind and) so forth, and their sleeping quarters, are all over the colony, even close to the Hongkong Hotel whence issue the strains of dance music nightly. The problem of what to do about the matter seems no nearer being solve than it ever has been, for all old They have tried sending schemes end in a repetition of the
these people back to their homes in Kuangtung province, but the knowing ones always return, finding life in Hongkong more pleasant than. se where. On one occasion the Society of St. Vincent do Paul en youred to ameliorate their lot by' Providing them with blankets, but although arrangements were made with the pawn: the same sort of case occurs, and with our more rigorous winter here a number of these un-_ fortunates die from exposure every. year. But what possibly can be done about the matter? There are numerous charitable institutions in the district, and some of them doubtless must be devised for this class of person, but if s0 their existence. seems not to lessen the numbers who live physically on the streets, at night finding what shelter the numerous alleyways _provide. 'The problem is not' confined to China, but is worldwide, and if not go on doing whatever they can to ameliorate it,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.