BABIES FOR SALE

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 3969, 7 October 1930, Page 2

BABIES FOR SALE

TWENTY DENTS PRISE IN SHANGHAI Twenty cents silver is the standard sale price for unwanted Chinese babies in Shanghai (says the correspondent of the Sail Francisco ‘ Chronicle ’). A year ago babies could bo had for nothing, but the nuns of Siccawei Convent, to keep Chinese mothers from throwing infants into the river, started paying for children brought to their doors. in the Virgin’s Garden of the convent a large basket is kept beside an open door. Twice or inavbe three times a day a screaming bit of human lile is deposited therein, and an eager woman holds out her hand for a piece of silver. The business of buying unwanted babies came into existence when a sister, seeing a woman on the point of tossing her new-born daughter into the Whangpoo River, tried to explain to the mother the seriousness of her offence. The Chinese woman failed to see why she should not throw her baby away, whereupon the sister offered to buy it for a 20-cent piece. All argument ceased. The woman took the coin and disappeared. The next morning there was an eager clamour outside the convent. Nearly TOO women were there waiting to bargain with the sisters for their babies. It mattered little that most of them iiad been told that the foreign women killed the babies and made them into medicine. Twenty cents loomed large to tiie Chinese mothers, and a baby is only a baby. The majority of the children left with the sisters are very young. Two or three ho .vs span the majority of their lives in the outside world. They are brought wrapped in dirty clothes, some of them mutilated. The sisters give (hem immediate medical attention, then feed them. The Helpers of Holy Souls, a French organisation, is in charge of the work at the convent. They have been at the business of saving Chinese children for sixty years, and, although they started in the face of grave dangei and handicapped by the ignorance of the women they tried to help, they have succeeded in carrying on their work unhampered. Boy babies brought to the convent are placed in Chinese homes soon after their arrival. At the age of seven they are sent to a boys’ school run by the society,' where they are taught wood carving, printing, photography, sculpture, or painting. The girls are kept by the sisters. They are taught to pray, read and write, se v, and make lace and embroidery.