Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-03-17
How Would You Like to Walk
the Streets With Starving
Children at Your Coat
=
,sa..< Tails T. Begging
for Food?
BY WILLIAM T. ELLIS.
Copyright. 1907. by Joseph b. Bowles.,
TSING-kTANG-PU China.

TSING-KTANG-PU. China.
January 10, 1907
II depends upon the bumps on man 8
head what he will think of a great famine
If his scientific bump be large ne viii!
point out dispassionately and learnedly,
that famines are one of the agencies Of
beneficent nature to keep down the surplus
population and to insure the survival of the
fittest. They are painful, like surgeons
operation, but they are really wise pro-
vision for the health of the whole mass of
mankind.
..Why do you carry that baby?" asked
my missionary friend of an aged. wthered
old woman in one of the famine refugee
camps in central China. pointing to starve-
ling which the trembling old arms held.
There is no one else; the father and
mother have both died" And. plainly, the
infant would soon follow them within the
portals of starvation gate, through which
so many hundreds are daily passing. The
death of the parents and the survival of
that old woman and tiny babe were famine
paradoxes; for most Of the victims at this
stage are the very old and the very young
In still another instance l saw wrinkled
half-blind old grandmother seated on the
bare and frozen ground. her only home
in the camp, dividing with a wee child
the thin rice Cruel which she had managed
ever made her way through tGat jam of
voracious wild creatures 1 cannot tell; on
the same day, at the same place, l saw
man so crushed by the jam that he could
not get to the mission hospital without
help. The cruel, crowding selfishness of
the Chinese in the scramble for daily bread
under ordinary circumstances Is more ele-
mental and unconcealed than anything
known in the west; add actual starvation
as a motive and you unchain all the saw
age beasts that Turk in the recesses of
human nature.
A few. days ago a missionary at Suchien
thought to alleviate a modicum of the dis
tress that surrounded him by distributing
one hundred work tickets to able-bodied men,
using relief, funds for payment When the
hour of distribution arrived ut was very
early in the morning) a mob Of 1000 men,
each determined to seize this chance for
work. no matter who might get left. surged
around the missionary. They crushed him
and finally bore him DOWNFALL with no evil
intentIon-and trampled him under foot
until he was rescued. unconscious, only
with greatest difficulty and his life barely
saved
That is the sort of thing. and worse.
which the authorities fear when they refuse
to allow individuals to go out into the
camps and dlsburse relief. 1t is more than
a little trying to a white mans nerves to
have starving people clutching at his coat
or falling on the ground DelOre MIN, OF
holding forth hungry children for his pity
while he dare not ease his feelings by scat
tering the few coppers that are Jingling in
his pocket But the rule is rigid. and doubt
less wise, that not a copper penny or a
brass cash may be given out directly.
In fact the officials. as well as most
other observers, rather anticipate serious
outbreaks as a consequence Of the famine.
Let nobody delude himself into the belief
that the Chinese are the abject serfs of an
autocratic government; the hundreds OF
mandarins who have been beaten. dipped in
huge jars of filth, covered with mud, ston-
ed and otherwise ill-treated by mobs. know
far different The Chinese are nearly al
ways ripe for riot. At any moment the big
world which has been SO callous to the
awfulness Of this famine that has swept
away the entire subsistence Of 3.0OvOO0
people out of a total population of 10000
900, dwelling in an area Of 10000 square
miles, may be startled into attention by a
great outbreak of mad, mob desperation, in
which all the foreigners within reach may
| perish II So be 1t remembered that poise
and self-restraint are qualities scarcely to
be expected Of men In the throes OF actual
starvation.
These furnishing Chinese are. as a matter
of observation. displaying respect for law
which could be, expected OF no western
people similarly situated. I have been
amazed to see heaps of rice and other
food stuffs freely exposed for sale or, the
sidewalks Of streets along which daily pass