The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-02-18
AWFUL STORY
Of THE FAMINE
The CHASTITY Sights Among the
Starving People in
China.

For l was an hungered, and ye gave
me meat,
The great duty and privilege of the
church of Christ in the world IS to
minister to the needs of mankind, both
/ spiritual and physical. 1t is TO visit
the fatherless, care for the needy, feed
the hungry, as well as to preach the
gospel of salvation. For indeed the
gospel is without power, unless it leads
to life of love, love that goes out
to all in distress and suffering.
| q was an hungered. How few
of US really know what it is to be hun
CRY. And when the story of famine
comes, how little can we realize the
awful suffering it unfolds. Last week
another steamer came from China,
bringing the latest news of the famine,
and telling the story of thousands there
of starvation and death. How little
we can know of the horror of it all
The story can never be told in its awful
details. Letters so far received give
but a small part, and are far from
being exaggerated. The half win new
er be known.
Special correspondent Mr.. Ellis, of
the Christian Herald, telegraphs from
Using Kiang Pu: s'The famine is big
ger than reported; at least three mil
| lions have to be fed In the great
flooded plain west of the city, DIR.
Woods of Husain reports that over ten
thousand families are in a state of ex-
IRENE restitution. They are In most
desperate condition, with no grain or
food whatever. This about the middle
of January. If these people are to
live, it is only by affording relief at
once. He writes: lone is haunted
by the awful cry for breadi bread!
breadl all round us, going up from
thousands. We earnestly hope the
committee win send help to these peo-
pie whose need is so great
Another account written in January
from Using Kiang, tells the pitiful sto-
ry: "We are living in the midst of
very pitiful scenes just now. We see
children left to die on the road; others
stripped of their clothing and deserted;
women weeping; others sold for food !;
families committing suicide wholesale,
lTr WIN in hot af cite
it is awful! The figures run into the
millions. The roads are full of hun
CRY men getting desperate. The Of
ficials are trying to break up this great
camp and send the people home again,
promising relief in their native villages
Some are now returning, but it is a
question whether the officials will make
their promises good. Many families
will go back to starvation and death.
Hundreds will die on the road. There
is not enough food for these destitute
multitudes
Walter Kirton writes, about the mid
die of January, from the great camp
at Using Kiang city: 1.-THE narrow
street was thronged and it was with
greatest difficulty that we made our
way through the surging masses. At
the bridge head we saw what was to
us the first fruit of famine, dead Chi
nese. Pulling his jacket aside with
| my stick, | saw that his ribs were lit
orally through his skin, this being
cracked and the body being absolutely
| fleshless. Never before have I seen
such beings as / saw here. I have
seen life and death in its crudest forms,
| battle, murder, sudden death and
worse-but never before have / seen
such concentrated misery, such indie
scribable horrors, as were to be witness
ed in the streets and camps of this city.
| have never seen famine before. but
L have had some inkling of what real
hunger means, but starvation is an
other thing. There is not a scrap of
animal or vegetable matter left in the
dirt or dust, or among the cobble stones
/ III the pavement on the streets or this
city. But if the sights in the city
were bad, the scenes in the camps out
side the walls were worse. Close pack
ing was the rule. In squares (about
l25 yards square) each surrounded by
kind of wall, L counted, finding from
1000 to 1900 huts in each. Inside
these walls and bitches was eongreea-
ted sum of human misery which would
require pen of lola to adequately
| describe. Hunger and abomination,
the abomination of desolation - and
worse. They were eating leaves and
| grass and something that might be rice
! gruel-weii, the truth is that [ can t
say anything more about them, except
that they were human beings in or APP
preaching an extremity OF the direst
| description
Another eyewitness at this camp
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS st.
| County asking him to watch the out
going boats for the Coast for a Japa,