To the Editor. of the "Nortu-Cuia Daly News"
Sm,—Permit me to add a word or two to the warnings of Shanghai Charities against "indiscrimina helping the needy ones, which appeared in your corresponce columns during the past few days It is certainly not a pleasure to beg even, I think. for a professional beggar, and if he nevertheless does stick to begging, it is because he has not come yet to that bitter conclusion which made Carlyle exclaim when disappointed with human kindness, "When you are in need, go and steal, but never beg." There is a French saying to the same effect: Donner est un plaisir, recevoir est quelquefois désagréable, The local Charities seem to believe to the opposite.
Personally I am of the opinion that issuing warnings to the pudic may be a duty of the police, but is absólutely unbecoming for charitably-inclined societies, whose only duty should be Further, very enhancing would be a little tolerance to the public, leaving the right to everyone to decide for himself how to spend his three or four dollars—in helping the needy one to buy orange juice or vodka slippers or bread—otherwise their tivity cannot be called charity There is another excellent French saying which should not be ignored, especially by Christian Charities anu Churches: Tout comprendre, tout pardonner, But it is not to discuss here the most serious subject of human life—public welfare—that I am writing this. My object is at hand and vital not only to others but also to me.
My past great experiences during my involuntary stay in China have brought me to the conclusion that true charitable disposition, although seldom, may be found among individuals, but never in a society; and, since I noticed often "charitable Shanghailanders speculating on my misfortune, to stop this, I hereby declare that I have nothing to do with local Charities and Churches and in nó circumstances would I ever approach them again, Mary RABENAU, Shanghai, Nov. 26.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.