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Otago Daily Times, Issue 14281, 1 August 1908, Page 9

PRACTICAL PHILANTHROPY. If there is ouo lot more deplorable than another it is surely that of these who have never had a chance and whose liopo.c? prosperity in this world is no anore promising than that of the submerged class to which they belong, a class which seems to vary fairly consistently according to population. Many distressing pictures have been drawn of the unfortunate conditions under which the poor live in the great centres of population in the Empire, and in such a picture it is always the child element which makes the most forcible appeal. Human nature is not so callous but ithafc it revolts- at the thought that a life may be absolutely predestined to degradation from its very inception. Its instinctive pity for childish helplessness would at least give the young' a guiding hand and a chance to start with somo hope and equipment in the struggle for existence. And philanthropy may take a, more practical form than Mrs Jellyby's voluminous correspondence witli a view to the settlement «f Britain's superabundant population on the hanks of the Niger and otljer salubrious African rivers or the embroidering of pocket handkerchiefs for ' little negroes who have no pockets to put them in. Recently we drew attention to the claims of a particularly iworthy, albeit modest, cause which dims at bringing a little sunshine and fresh country nir, if only for one day in the year, into the sordid lives of thousands of children in the Old Country whose horaon is bounded by tenement walls and .whose existence is unrelieved in its murky squalor. Again, the name of Dr Barnardo is a household word .throughout the Empire by virtue of the splendidly practical philanthropic work carried on by him during his strenuous life among the waifs and strays of the greatest city of the world. One of the most admired of the institutions established by "tho Father of Nobody's .Children," as Mr Stead aptly called him, is tho village home fqr girls at 3?arkingside, in Essex. Here, in'between sixty and seventy cottage homes, some thirteen hundred girls find healthful and suitable abode, and each family is in charge of a "mother," A beautiful village church, well-equipped laundry, well-appointed schools, dressmaking, cookery, and needlework classes, a good gymnasium, and l an up-to-date sanatorium for consumptives enable the management to deal with its large family and train the girls in the best possible way. A project which Dr Barnardo had deeply at heart in connection with what ' ho called Ids "garden city," but which he did not live to carry out, was tlic establishment of a suitable hospital for the use of the many sick and cripple children received. It has been felt that the erection of this building would be a. fitting tribute to Dr Barnardo's memory, and sympathisers with the project in this part ot tho world will probably be appealed to directly by the managers of the homes to give it their practical support. By way of conveying a slight idea, of the extent of the great philanthropic work inaugurated by Dr Barnardo, it may be mentioned that it has Jed to the establishment of 117 distinct homes, with a .population averaging about 8000 boys and girls, that about 0-5,000 young people have passed through these institutions' so far, and that about 20,000 trained bovs and cirls have b&en sent, abroad. The establishment of Barnardo homes in Canada has itself been a valuable and extensive practical undertaking. .Since in England there has been a call for such strenuous effort among the child population, it is not ■to be imagined that there would nof. he a crying need for work on similar linos in a land of teeming millions and great cities such as India. Hi our Kstic of this morning will be found an article giving an interesting account of the noble work being carried on at Kalinyjong, in the Northeastern Hiina*

layas, where on a site given him by the Indian Government the Rev. Dr Graham has established one of the largest and most widely supported philanthropic institutions in India. Nor is it to be wondered that the cry of the children—of white children, be it noted—in this part of the Empire should have found sueli a listener, for it. is somewhat loud and incessant. The huge, population of India absorbs more Europeans than might be imagined. They sink into hiding and oblivion—Kipling has thrown light on the subject,—and when they die their children, if no friend of the submerged sahib conies forward to claim them, are simply engulfed without a shadow of hopo for their future. These are the waifs whose case Dr Graham has found even more urgent than that of the heathen, and in whose behalf he started a crusade on undenominational lines which, as perusal of the ertiele referred to will show, has developed in a striking manner, and merits all the admiration given and the support invited for it. And since he is endeavouring to win the sympathy of New Zealand farmers with a view to securing openings for lads trained to farm work and desirous of leaving India., the New Zealand fanner" is given an opportunity of being philanthropic in a way that may eventually be really profitable to him.