AUGUST 22, 1908

p. 1

DEPORT HINDUS BY THE SCORE
--------------------------Consumptive and Indigent Asiatics Are Being Shipped
Back to Hongkong Before Rainy Season Sets in.
Dr. A. S. Monro, federal immigrant agent, has started a campaign to rid
Vancouver and New Westminster of sick and indigent Hindus before the
advent of winter, when it would be practically certain they would become
charges on the community. Already fifty Hindus have been deported, and
there are now ten more in the detention shed booked for shipment back to
Hongkong on the next outgoing steamer. Others are being gathered in daily.
Many of the Hindus who are being shipped out of the country are
consumptives, having contracted the disease since their arrival here. Last
winter hundreds of these men from India was subjected to exposure and
damn cold weather, with the result that they were easy victims to tuberculosis
in their half-starved condition.
There are now in Vancouver and surrounding districts a number of Hindus
who are in destitute circumstances and particularly incapable of performing
work if it was to be obtained because they are victims of tuberculosis in
incipient of advanced stages. Some are suffering from other diseases. With the
coming of winter the position of these men will become deplorable, and there
is no question but that they would become public charges; and it is better for
them and for the community that they should be returned to Hongkong before
the rainy season sets in.