VAGRANT CHILDREN

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 39, 15 February 1930, Page 11

VAGRANT CHILDREN

A RUSSIAN PROBLEM

INCURABLE VAGABONDS

The Soviet claim that vagabond children no longer exist in Russia seems to be sharply disputed in some quarters. Visitors in Eussia, we learn from the press, are told that this admitted "social scourge" is a thing of the past, and there are plenty of photographs to show well-behaved and earnest Soviet children at school and play. But at the same time (says "The Literary Digest") we find notices in the French press of a Russian book on the subject of the vagabond children, by ono Tentinov, which is translated into French by Andre Pierre. In tho winter time, it appears, these fugitive youngsters flock to the cities, where at least they can get the heat of manholes and shelter in railway cars. In the summer they make a hegira' to the country districts. To cite Mr. Pierre in the Paris "Europeen":—-

"If these children stayed in one place it would be very much easier to gather them together. But they are always moving either from north to south or from south to north. It is difficult to. get hold of them. They slip right through one's hands. Once they have tasted the poison of a wandering life, they can never give it up. Many of them live in railway stations and in the docks. They organiso regular clubs, which have certain laws and regulations, and they sometimes manage to remain in such a club for four or five successive years. They live upon whatever falls into their grasp. And any timo there is a lack of booty, they steal the valise from an absent-minded traveller, pick his pocket for his purse, or grab a handbag from a woman."

We are told that in a city of Trans.caucasia one day 4SO abandoned chiljdreli were arrested. When their ago was asked, they all answered alike: ''Fourteen years." In reality, it seems, quite a number of them were fugitives from justice, and hoped by claiming to be fourteen years of age to disarm suspicion. But the greater number of them, it is related, were from' fifteen to sixteen. It was discovered that some of them had even reached twentyone. They were all assembled, and this question was asked: "How many of you want to give up being vagabonds? How many of you want to be placed immediately in a factory of the Soviet Government?" Only sixty agreed to go to work, it is related.

Eeference is then made in "L'Europeon" to the picture of Kussia's wandering children presented in another book entitled "The Way of the Grasshoppers." They arc to be seen in the daytime in the streets of Moscow selling matches along the curb. They wash themselves in pools of rain left jin tho street or in. the hollow space before basement windows. They aro to bo seen smoking cigar butts, or playing cards, but, it is said, they are rarely to be seen eating. This Russian author, as translated, in this Paris daily, continues:—

"That is what we- see of them from the outside. But they do many things hidden from our eyes. They steal, sniff cocaine, drink ether, and even commit murder. At night they disappear somewhere in railway stations or in empty railway cars. Huddled together, these famished and diseased children keep each other warm while dreaming of a country where there is no snow, and whero melons and grapes ripen. Melons are their favourite' food, bocause the melon is in itself a meal, farinaceous, sweet and juicy, so that it at once satisfies hunger and thirst." We are told then that they make their way to the land where the melons grow, in tho region of Samarkand especially.- Their fate depends on the conductor of the'train, who is said to know all their tricks and hiding-places, and how they can travel milo after mile doubled in two.