LIFE IN SHANGHAI.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18404, 10 June 1925, Page 13

LIFE IN SHANGHAI.

N.Z. LADY'S LETTER. f Writing to a friend in Christchurch from Shanghai iinder date of February 26th, a New Zealand lady says: "We arrived' tit Shanghai on a, bitterly cold day just before Christmas—a. real English Christmas 'kept in .English fashion. Everybody who had a family had a home gathering. The streets were full of holly wreaths and Christmas trees, and every houso was decor- • ated inside and out. It was my first "cold" Christmas. Unfortunately the snow did not come till after Christmas I was -over, and then we had quite heavy ■ falls. It was lovely, the snow was kind I and hid all the dirt of Shanghai—and I beyond the Concession it w«ts just a, white world. My sister and I went | across to see it all; it was well we did, j for siuco then the war has been on and it has not been safe to venture beyond the Ivirricadcs. It's been quite thrilling to be living in a fortified town; sandbags, barbed wire, and mtahine guns everywhere. It was a. bit too close for •comfort really: bullets from the enemy actually lodged in my neighbour's garden; it's settled for a-time, I think, but one never knows when it will break out again. So man}' Russian refugees have joined the .Chinese Army that the place is full of -thern; poor things, they -ire so sad. • There is one' Russian lady here who has a houseful of young Bussian girls—sho, gathered them up as she made her way down here; they are all well born, almost destitute and there -are hundreds of them in the same position. People .take the men on as chauffeurs, but in a Chinese country it is difficult to give them work; it's very said to see them begging at the street corners and eating at the Chinese chowshops. \ I Avcnt to see a wonderful orphanage yesterday run by French sisters: they rescue the tiny babies. It's a Huge place. We went all oiver it and I came away filled with admiration for their work. It niust be so uneventful—snch a sordid part of the town they live in. I bad always been told how fond the Chinese were of their babies. The rich may be: certainly not the poor, for they throw the tiny mites into the streets for days, but these good sisters pay tho people who pick them up and bring them in to them, 20 cents, and they care for them. They eomo in on an averaige of five a day—nearly all girls. Of course many of them die from exposure and the ill-treatment they have received. We saw and heard hundreds of babies—all ages, from a day old-up-wards, nil their tiny cots' and. all being cared for~by Christian Chinese; some of the tiny ones we saw would not live, they had lwen so ill-treated. They keep them till they are 14 years old, don't attempt to educate them, jiust teach them to say their prayers and sing hymns,. arid then thev put them to making lace and embroideries — most gorgeous stuff, that could" only be bought by millionaires; as a matter of fact it is only done to the orders of American women. At 18 they arrange suitable marriages for them with the boys at tho boys' orphanage and they go out and settle in the adjoining village. The boys have been taught to work, and the women go back to the convent and work by the day for wages., or work in their own homes and sell the work. The little toddlers were so happy—3oo of them, \md the older ones seem contented. The idiot 3 and the blind are eared for; they spin the cotton for their clothes. The sight of-a blind girl at her wheel will always remain with me as one of the saddest sights I've seen.