HELPING THE LEPERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15411, 20 September 1913, Page 8

HELPING THE LEPERS.

NOBLE MISSION WORK. MOST SKETCHED OF MANKIND. "Letrost is not hereditary; that is the opinion of eminent medical men who have given their livea to the study of this dread disease, consequently in India wo are able to save many children of lepers by removing them from their mothers before they get the taint- Wo cannot do this by compulsion, but our persuasion is generally successful." la these words Mr. Wellesley ' 0. Bailey described to an audience in the E~st Street Mission Hall, Newton, last evening an important preventive work which is going on in India. Mr. Bailey is founder of the mission to the lepers of < India and the East, and he and Mrs. Bailey are visiting Now Zealand to arouse interest in the Hussion's activities. The effort which .J to. Bailey directs commenced ■in a email-way in India in 1674, and has spread all over that country and extended to China, Japan, Corea, Manila, and Straits Settlements. The Indian Government recognises the work, arid assists the mission financially and in other -ways. Mr. Bailey's lecture was illustrated by excellent slides, and one of the first pictures thrown on the screen showed how wretched is the condition of the leper. It was that of a. disease-ridden old man living by himself in the jungle, his leg roughly swathed in bandages, and his whole possessions in the tent which sheltered him. To such outcasts as these the workers of ( the mission go, and gather them into shelters, care for them, and give them a hope beyond the grave, for, as the lecture: put it, a leper has no hope this side of the grave, and a heathen leper none beyond. The only authenticated case of a euro is that of Miss Mary Reed, an American missionary, who contracted the diseaso in India, and aterwards devoted herself to work among the lepers. Though the doctors have pronounced her free of organic disease, eho continues her work in the leper asylums and churches. The feeling of the native population to lepers is sufficiently illustrated by the fact that in India tlwy have frequently been shot or drowned, and in China they are often ruthlessly butchered, and their bodies burned. Leprosy is . a greater scourge than most people'imagine. India has a leper population of 111,000, Japan has 200,000, and China between' 200,000 and 600,000, A sad feature, as Mr. Bailey illustrated by slides, is that mar,? of these victims aro mere children. Evangelical work amongst the leper population of India was stated by the lecturer to be particularly successful. It hao many nathetic aspects, this work amongst the most wretched of mankind Mr. Bailey told of two women, one who had lost her feet and the other her hands who agreed to help each other through life' The first dragged besaclf about the floor of the hut, doing all the household work and if there was any travelling to bo done the one with the sound feet carried the one who had hands but no feet The Rev. J. oiphert 'introduced the speaker.