The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-02-12
ONLY CHINESE oRPHANAGE.
It Started in San Francisco as a Chil-
 dren's Emergency Hospital.

drens Emergency Hospital.
 Off Clay street, below Powell, there i is blind alley, writes Adriani Spandoni in the San Franscisco Chroni- cle. At the end of the alley there is a house. In that house, until four years ago, there was a mission school exactly like dozens of others through out Chinatown. To-day, in that same house managed by the same people, there is the only chinese orphanage in the United States Four years ago | the matron was one of many sincere, self sacrificing women, all treading the old conventional paths of religious mis- sionary work, To-day she is the only white woman in Chinatown who is working along what may be called mo- dern sociological lines. The change was made not because the old work is not good one, but because scores of peo- pie are doing it we'll, while no one was doing this work at all.
 Now it must not be supposed that | Chinatown is teeming with neglected iorphans Quite the contrary, for their is no race on earth that takes better care of it's children than the Chinese. Leaving natural affection out, the Chinese religion turns on having des- cendants to offer worship for their pa- rents. A Chinese family without a child is conservative buys child if he has none of his own. As to the father who sells, evidently 1t is only an Ori- ental interpretation of he wha has 1 giving to him who has not
 Therefore the present orphanage did Inot start because So many Chinese children had no homes. In fact, it did not begin as real orphanage at all From kind of emergency hospital fol children 1t has developed into one Back of it all lies a single superstition thousands upon thousands of years olt This is the way of 1t.
 Among all the fears that haunt the pagan Chinese mind there Is none stronger than the terror of ghosts. Nc mater how poor a Chinese family may be there Is always a special place se apart in the house as death chamber It is generally a kind of hal between the sleeping rooms, one end open t the sky and furnished with the tablets To fthe ancestors and the gods for wor ship. If any one is sick, as soon as | is known that there is no hope he l. carried to this room to die. He Is no left alone, not deserted. His family anC friends care for him and stay with hin to the last and even after he Is dead do not leave the body. For him livini they have only love. But against hi ghost they draw the line. Just wha damage they expect the returning spirit to do is impossible to find out. 4 peasant does not know clearly himself tor will not tell, and one cannot ask al educated, cultured Chinese, It woult be like asking q spectacled German scientist if he believed in the efficacy o a rabbits foot.
 But whatever the reason, the fact re mains. And 1t remains here in our owl Oriental quarter just as in the heart 0 China. But conditions here do no permit each heather family 10 have dying room So there have always ex isted scattered throughout Chinatown roms in whicho one can die acordinI to the traditions of his ancestors. Wha could be more proper? And these room they cali hi ping fong, or rooms O everlasting, restful peace" What nor poetlcal?
 It costs nothing for the poorest Chin csc to dle properly, for these rooms ar maintained by the companies, Further more, each room has its caretaker t lookw after those so poor and friend