ON A SINKING SHIP.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 16 September 1925, Page 3

ON A SINKING SHIP.

— *—•— PEOPLE WITHOUT A HOME. OVER TWO HUNDRED SOULS. UNHAPPY RUSSIAN WANDERERS.

How many people, it is asked, have any idea what it meant to be a wanderer in Eastern- Europe, without a country and without a passport? A travelling correspondent of a London paper sends such a case from -Constantinople. Near, the quay, at Tophaneh, below Pera, there came one day a boat not much bigger than a large fishing smack; on board it were 237 men and women. There was no more than standing room for them, and they had been for 25 days on the way from Varna, in Bulgaria, normally three days’ sailing to Constantinople. They had started with three: days’ rations. All these people were Russians, some of them former -soldiers of Wrangel’s army, who had fled from Russia when that general was defeated. At Varna they had' been put in a concentration camp by the Bulgarians, and were so tired of their captivity that they jumped at the offer of the captain of this little -boat to take, them to Constantinople, where, as) they were led to expect, they would be free to land. When the passengers reached •Constantinople on April 5 they presented a. terribly sad spectacle, and one. can imagine their despair when they were told that, as -their papers were, not in order, they must not land, but must push out to sea once more. The ship began to sink, and, some of them climbed into the rigging a-nd threatened to jump overboard to end their sufferings. Happily for them a British sea captain saw their plight, and) secured permission for them to land. The. people were given a- little shed on the beach, and kind people found broad, tea and soup for them, with milk for the babies. But as day after day and week after week went by money ran short. The Turkish authorities summoned the captain who had tempted them into paying fares in his rotten, ship, and made him give up the money, which was spent in taking deck passages for the people to return to Varna.

But Bulgaria, declined o .receive the wanderers, so they were on.ee more .unloaded, oil to the quay at Tophaneh. The Soviet representative said he could not send any to- Russia, though some were willing to go, because they had no papers. The Americans and English wlio subscribed money for them were obliged to cut down tlio ration, and. when the writer left Constantinople they were, getting half a loaf a day each. Solid help was found for a few; and by the kind,ness of a Drench general labour contracts, for France were found for a smalt number. But. the bulk of the people remained. Most of them ha ye been wandering, homeless and friendless, for the last three years. “This,” it is added, “is one of the miseries that have c-.ome from the absence of real peace, and it is from the ranks of men and women driven to despair like this that anarchists are made. The League of Nations does something for hundreds and -thousands of wanderers, but, its hands need to- be strengthened and the funds at its disposal increased.” urw p ■■■'Hi ases ggnaapqmg vaaaßamrwarmximrarr^ssswjssmsmacnmiaKSVßsmsa