Some Human Stories from Lester' Hospital The report for May of this year by the Superintendant of the Lester [Chinese Hospital is a dramatic document, It follows, as received:
The Shanghai public has of recent months been hearing a great deal about. the financial depression, and ts effects upon business, Closing of banks, liquidations, failures, all have an effect upon the lives of numerous individuals, and of these only a few Jare sufficiently in the limelight to gain a place in the newspaper [Those who work in the eily's hospitals have a clearer perception of What financial stress means. to the ublic than' most others, except prob-Jably the Police Force, 'Two recent group suicides have been public recorded, because their dramatic nature,' but here are Jsome figures that emphasise the strain, Jin this one hospital, last year, the numbers of attempted suicides in each month from January to May were 75, 68, 124, 14, and 122, a total of 463. 'The corresponding figures for this year have been 82, 81, 136, 182, 80, total 681, 'This increase' is almost wholly due' to economic dimculti Market Value of Lite Occasionally there is brought up in somewhat startling manner the Jactual market value of a human life.
A big sturdy man, come from the Jeountry for work, was thrown out Jot employment by the closing of a mill. He invested in the requirements for street hawking, but a spell of bad luck reduced' him to Deggary. His last assd, a basket, went for the price of a packet of Jarsenic, Picked up on the street, he was brought to hospital and revived, Alter due inquiry, he was refitted with the means of carrying on his feawlcing again, and a month later is, Jaetting on sulllciently well. The cost of refitting him was, for baskets fand a small stock of wares, §3; for fan old coverlet, say, $1; for extras, $0.50; total $4.50. This was the price Jot one man's lite, A woman, plagued by itiness and starvation, "stole apiin, "Chikdren dead, husband tot work, she cond not hang on to life An effort in the right place and her husband was earning enough to support the scantily, "A few days' treatment, and she was ell on the way to renewed berith," Cent "of rettment (other $1.50. Total cost $1.0, plus an hour's ran for the opium poisoning),
work in finding employment, and. home is saved, at least temporarily, Wis starting in it not?
Out-patients' visite to the end of May have numbered '4540, nine crease of 9436 over the frst five months of last year. "The reasons for this increase. are numerous, but one factor is that many patients are no longer able to meet the cost of visite private practitioners Two Limitations 'Thus the hospital, like others of a similar type, Is having to meet increased demand for treatment and Mfe-saving. Naturally, its stof are gad that they can' do more for those who suffer, and a to meet these the utmost of their ability. But there are {wo limitations to such work. There the limit of staff strength and of serious. As public financial stress waxes greater, and calls on the hospital for aid increase, there is at the same time less inclination to give for charitable purposes, and income is apt to fall just at the time it is most urgently needed.
The Lester Chinese Hospital, for instance, has property endowments, bringing in certain sums for this ief of indigent sick folk. These sums are small enough for the work is called on to do even in more normal times, but depression means the shrinkage even of these, while, at the same time, the number of eas with urgent disease or injury, and unable to pay even the small' sums asked, increases. alarmingly. vigorous man-hunt covering a wide area in Shanghai resilled—in the arrest on Thursday, by the French Police, of eight alleged members of 4 kidnapping gang and the release of a four-year-old Chinese boy who was abducted from his home in the Concession, near Siccawei, five weeks ago, Lu 'Kingsen was in' his mother's arms on the afternoon of May 13 when the kidnappers arrived and the boy was snatched from his mother and carried away. The victim's father tried to raise alarm, but he was immediately silenced by the gunmen, who fired at and slightly wounded him. Letters were sent to the boy's parents, Semanding $50,000 as ransom money.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.