Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 May 1877 — The Famine in China. [ARTICLE]

The Famine in China.

Simultaneously with the dearth which is causing so much anxiety in India, a famine is raging ftthe nerth of China; but while the care and energy of the Indian Government reduce the distress in the former case te a minimum, people are dying by thousands In China of sheer starvation. The scenes of the chief distress are inthq north and east, in the extreme north of Kiangsu, in Shantung, in Pechili and in Shaasc; and-from Shantung especittfiy the accounts which reach Us are heartrending. The whole tract of conntry in question suffered last summer from severe drought, which ©early.destroyed the crops; and the peasantry, having eaten what little grain instore, or were able to gather, are reduced now to the last stage of want. The picture draw© by Jfeptestant misffioßaries in Shantung, and who are distributing the alms liberally contributed by the foreign communities in China, is terrible. Mr. Richard writes: “ Having finished their com, t|te people are now eating grain husks, potato stalks and elm bark, buckwheat Stalks, turnip leaves and grass seeds, which they gather in the fields. When these are exhausted they pull down their houses and sell the timber, and it is reported every, where thaT many eat the rotten sorghum stalks from the roof and the dried leaves which they usually bum for fuel. Of their eating fuel leayiss there is no doubt; thousands eat them, and thousands die because they cannot get even that. They sell their clothes and children. . Having j»o clothijut*left protect them from the cold,'many take refuge In pits’built underground, to keep themselves warm by the fetid breath of the crowd. In the east Suburb of Chingehow Citythert are four such pits. One-third of the number (240) originally put in them are now dead within six weeks, and no sooner is a corpse carried out than a crowd are struggling for the place. Villagesof 500 families report 800 deaths of starvation; villages of 300 report 100 persons dead.” Almost the whole Province of Shantung is suffering; but the suffering of . eight hien districts is said, to be beyond description; and as each contains an average of 1,000 villages, the thousands who have already perished mirt be too readily conceived.—London Times' Shanghai Correspondence. ; - , i