GILDED HALLS AND STARVATION

Evening Star, Issue 19952, 23 August 1928, Page 5

GILDED HALLS AND STARVATION

LOVELY NIGHT LIFE OF HARBIN The thin line Unit, is drawn between life and death, gaiety and despair, Jus perhaps never bam better illustrated than iu pre-sent-day Harbin, Unit Jialt'-Uussian. halfCLiuese oily of .Manchuria, bays a writer in a London newspaper. Tens of thousands of icfugee.s from (ho fami no-stricken, war-ridden, ami banditstripped province of Kbaniuu" have, been passing through Harbin en route to :\v homes iu Miuidmrin. Hulking men, patient women, and wondering children, all poor to the minutest degree, hungry and sold, are packed lightly in the wooden sued near Uto station. An u'lerly .shan-ted won,an lies back on her bedroll with a I'pnrming child at her breast. CHAMPAnA]' AMID POVERTY. Not many minutes away 'from this shed of poverty shine the gilded halls cf Kussi.ni night life, in sinking contrast to vdiat I bavo already described—(ho Folks Ccrgoro premier calm ret of Harbin, Out of the jaws oi a giganlio papiermaclie tiger stop three comely Russian girls. They cavort about (ho tables of Hushed gnosis as the champagne Hows anew. Uhinesc, Russians, an international crow of revellers follow (he umhilalions of tin) dancers, cum (lie women gunning with an unlovely emotion. Smisuousiu-ss is in the air, ami is flogged id fever heat as the night wears en. X trapeze is lei, down from the ceiling, and! each girl takes her pine.; on it, hanging outward towards (he audience. The ’trapeze is raised high above the fables amt begins io I urn. TWO POUNDS A COTTLE.

One of the Russian girls pours a Ixilllo of eliampngne, over (ho head of her malo companion, and no one Meins to cans that the beverage costs £2 a hoi lie. And those £2 would keep a largo family of the Chinese refugees from starvation for a whole year.