The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-02-07
The Records Of a Famine.

The Shanghai Relief Committee have
lately issued their report on the recent
famine in the north of China. The
record of misery which it contains is
appalling, and is only lightened by the
accounts given of patient endurance
on the part of the sufferers, and the
charitable endeavors made by both ma
tives and foreigners to mitigate the hor-
rors of the calamity. When year after
year the crop failed. the people began
by supplementing the meager harvests
gathered from the blighted fields with
herbs and leaves; but, as throughout
the country districts the scarcity
pressed upon all classes with equal in
cidence, even these means of subsist-
ence were soon exhausted. Next the
bark of trees, the stalks of millet taken
from the roofs of houses, and even a
kind of white clay, were greedily eaten
by the starving people. Upon the old
and young and weakly the effect of
want of food soon began to tell. One
by one they died off, until the whole
districts were depopulated of all but
the stronger men and women, and on
the faces of these there came the black,
haggard look of starvation.
In one enclosure, (says Mr. Hitler
in his report on the famine districts),
at one time full of substantial buildings,
which had been pulled down for the
sake of the timber and sold for few
dollars in cash, found solitary man
sitting dejectedly in the midst of his de-
serted enclosure. His face was almost
black, and he had such wild and hag-
gered look that thought he was out of
his mind. He looked up when spoke
to him, however, and, in answer to my
question of how many members his
family consisted, he told me with
sobs it was painful to hear that he alone
was left out of sixteen. never saw
such a picture of utter misery and
despair. In another house was a little
boy some thirteen years of age, who
was the sole survivor of a large family.
Father, mother, brothers and sisters
had all gone, one by one, and left the
little lad to fight it out alone.
So completely did the moral stamina
of the people become destroyed by
want that the stronger fell upon the
weaker and devoured them, and bands
of starving wretches, in whom the only
instinct remaining was that of self
preservation, secured the country to
satisfy their inhuman appetites. In
vain the authorities tried by almost as
revolving punishments to put stop to
the practice. They buried women alive
for eating their own children, with no
other effect but to add to the general
mortality. The extreme weakness to
which even the strongest were reduced
was piteous to degree. Mr.. Richard
states that in Shanse he met man
staggering along the road as though he
were drunk. Recognizing the real
condition of the sufferer, he was in the
act of sending his servant to give him
money, when passing puff of wind
blew the emaciated creature down,
and the money was returned to the bag.
Another traveller, speaking of vii
lage street in Honan, says: " I saw
people dead; l saw people dying; 1 saw
crowds partly of dead and partly of
living people, and the living people
had not the energy to move away"
Whole villages were still and silent,
and if not, were too often disturbed by
sights and sounds which were worse
than silence. Fortunately last year
rain fell upon the parched lands, and,
for the first time in four or five years.
the people in the more fortunate dis
tricts reaped fairly good harvests.-
Pail Mall Gazette.