The high cost of living has also increased the death rate among the poor to such an extent that the ability of the Shanghai Public Benevolent Cemetery has been taxed to its capacity. On the average, during the past few days, about 100 bodies have been picked up daily from Settlement streets.
As the weather has not been so cold during the past few days, the increased death rate is said to be due to the increased cost of living which in turn renders it impossible for poor families to look after their children. Most of the dead were children, but it is said, that no doubt that many adults and children have died of starvation.
During tne past five days ending Sunday night, the Cemetery which has been doing excellent burying work during the winter had picked up 558 dead people from the Settlement streets alone and a check with the Cemetery yesterday revealed that the phüsmthropie organization was prepared to handle about 100 dead daily.
A Chinese report states that the number of students in all schools here has been reduced by one fifth because many parents cannot afford to let their children go to school as a result of increased prices. It is pointed out that since the hostilities the number of schools here has been greatly increased following the increase of population but that now the "golden age" of educators has passed.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.