FOR the first time the streets of centuries-old Lhasa, capital of Tibet, are free of roaming beggars and vagabonds.

In the past five years: the municipal people's government has helped more than 8,700 Lhasa beggars and vagrants to find jobs and decent housing. Many are now employed as handicraftsmen and building workers, and their school-age children are in school. A welfare institute has been set up for the aged and handicapped, providing them with a roof over their heads, food, clothing and free medical service. Others have been settled in the suburbs or in their native villages from which they had fled as victims of feudal serfdom before the democratic reforms.

One of the capital's worst eye-sores, a notorious slum of ramshackle sheds and tattered tents, has been done away with. The residents of this onetime squalor, two-thirds of whom were full-time alms seekers, have moved into government housing.

(This article appears on page 43, No. 1, 1964)