Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 67, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 April 1907 — MILLIONS ARE STARVING.. [ARTICLE]

MILLIONS ARE STARVING..

Famine Conditlonn In China Result in CaaniTinlism. Telegrams from twenty points in the famine district of China' report that conditions are growing worse. Ten million persons af<T sufferingfrom lack of food and are facing starvation. Members of the relief committee at the front report that they find the bodies of the sufferers bloated and that their faces turn green or black as the result of starvation. The people are pulling up. the growing crops for food. Whole families have been found dead in their houses and corpses are seen lying bv the roadside. Probably--5,000 persons are dying daily from starvation. A few cases of riotjng for food have occurred nud cannibalism is beginning to be reported. Newly made graves have been robbed of bodies and parents are exchanging their children to be eaten. A dollar, the relief committee, imports, will save one life until th?Niarvest, June 25, and $10,000,000 is needed. The whole amount cannot be raised in China. The situation is desperate and Americans are urged to give $3,000,000. The Chinese government and people have contributed more that} $4,000,000 for relief, and the -sums received from ail foreign sources reach $500,000, including supplies on tho way from America. Fifty missionaries are engaged with the higher class of Chinese in overseeing the relief distribution. Coafucianists, Catholics and Protestants are working together. The telegraph officials are carrying messages free to and from the relief works, and the steamship companies are furnishing transportation for supplies of food, etc., for the sufferers. Twenty thousand famine sufferers are employed in building dams and canals to prevent a recurrence of the floods. Telegrams received by the relief committee in Shanghai from a number of additional famine districts report that the distress is growing worse. Some of the sufferers are contending against fever or smallpox in addition to lack of food. A starving man choked himself to death by swallowing almost whole a biscuit which had been given to him by a casual visitor. A woman with three 'Children was found weeping bn a bridge where her husband had fallen dead from starvation. A husband, wife and their five children were discovered in a house starving to death, huddled together, clothed in rags. The bark of trees had been their only food. The gratitude of the poor people who are given relief is very touching.