HUNGER IN NEW YORK.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9163, 11 August 1908, Page 3

HUNGER IN NEW YORK.

SUFFERING DUE TO LACK OF EMPLOYMENT. Fifty thousand school children, according to Mr Robert Hunter, the millionaire Socialist, are going breakfastles3 to school in this city, writes the New York correspondent of the London "Daily Mail." Although these figures are not scientifically obtained and are probably exaggerated, there is no doubt that o.ving to the widespread lack of employment starvation is causing terrible suffering among the children of tie east side of the city. In one district alone, on the east si.Je, Miss Julia Richman, a superinte ident, tells ma an estimate of 1,000 starving pupils would probably be a tow one. "From nine schools," she s liJ, "three hundred cjses have been reported to me of boys and girls unable to give attention to their studies owing to hunger. "How many brothers and sisters fiesy little children have at home I am unable to say, but I am convinced that the conditions of penury and starvation which are overwhelming thy teachers are not local, but are equally present among the Italian population on the wedt side. I know of one woman who leaves home early every morning to avoid hearing the criss of her children who are obliged to go breikfaslless tc school." A meeting of social workers was held to consider the situation the other night. While the meeting was in progress a Russian Jewess, ignorant of the English language, came with her little baby in her arms, followed by her six-yrar-old daughter, and fell in a faint on the floor from starvation. Soup kitchens are being rapidly organised for the purpose of fe.'dmg the school children, and sever il of them will be opened on Monday.