PLAGUE SPOT.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3381, 4 July 1927, Page 7

PLAGUE SPOT.

The Earl of Lytton, Governor of Bengal, has devoted not a few of the last crowded hours of his Governorship to efforts to stimulate public interest in the solution of Calcutta’s darkest social problem. Three years ago His Excellency revealed the fact at a public meeting that no fewer than 2000 girls between the ages of 9 and 13 are' kept in Calcutta houses for immoral purposes, and appealed for 100,000 rupees to provide homes in which the child victims of this ghastly traffic could be sheltered.

The Legislative Council passed the measure necessary to empower the police to remove the girls from the houses of ill fame, but the total response to His Excellency’s appeal for the provision of homes and for the education of the girls was a sum of 12,000 rupees, most of which was subscribed by Europeans, _ although the problem is entirely an Indian one. When opening the other day a home affording shelter to thirty girls made possible by the present subscriptions, Lord Lytton did not mince his words in denouncing the shameful deafness of the citizens of the richest city in India to his previous appeal. He described the inadequate response as incredible and humiliating, and concluded with these words: “I have only a few days to spend in this country. Can you let me return to England and say that I appealed to the public of Calcutta, to fathers and mothers in the name of their own children, to rescue 2000 helpless girls from a life of misery and degradation, and I appealed in vain ?” As the result of His Excellency’s further appeal the Mayor of Calcutta opened a fund for the institution of more homes, and Lord Lytton headed the list of subscriptions with a donation of 2000 rupees. Funds are increasing steadily, and there is reason to hope that the Governor’s activities outside the sphere of politics will have assured the removal of Calcutta’s foulest plague spot.