St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1907-03-13

many officials have had their salaries
reduced, the saving therein being devot-
ed to relief; the minis are running over
time coming cash. A pledge has been
made that in certain districts the acute
sufferers shall receive three cash Ia sixth
of one cent? per day for month. 1t is
proposed to reopen old canals and re-
build old roads and thus afford the
starving an opportunity to work for.
subsistence.
None the less is foreign relief an abso-
lutte necessity. AS Mr.. Ellis, cores
pondent of the Christian Herald, points
out in a recent letter, the only way to
comprehend the magnitude of the
calamity is to consider it in fragments.
AS he puts it:
Take for example little district con
tanning ten thousand people, and what
are they among four millions? The
Chinese estimate, which certainly does
not err on the side of generosity, is a
cent and half (about thirty CASH a
dav for each of these. That is to say it
will require $3.50 a day to keep the
people in that district alive during the
famine That means 81 800 per month
and since the famine will continue for
FIVE months more, until the spring wheat
can be harvested Qess than half the
normal crop is expectedD this one district
will requir? help amounting to 500, 800.
/ China and the rest of the world will have
to 90 deeply into their pockets if these
four millions of human beings Gods
images carved in ivory to paraphrase
Fuller's saying, are to be kept from pre-
mature graves.
Mr.. Ellis says: mine is heartbreaking
work, and one does not wonder as he
/ tells of boy waif of eight years, stricken
with >mallpox and crouching in the sun
| for hours. while beside him was a child
of four, dressed in single garment that
did not reach the knees and grooming
constantly the sad wall that hunger
draws from depths pain.
A missionary (who has been in con-
slant touch with smallpox patients for a
fortnight) tells of father of a family of
| IA who sent out his boys to borrow or
beg a little grain for food They were
gone all day and returned with two
/ quarts Of beans "The poor man saw
! the helpessness of it all" the missionary
4 adds naively, land went and hanged
! himself
Trying to describe scenes in the
famine camps, writes newspaper man
to friend in New York, lis like trying
to eat greasy food when you are seasick.
am bit hardened, guess, by my
profession and its necessity for seeing
grim sights and hearing woeful tales, but
my mental stomach turns when come
to set down in cold ink a few of the
things saw round Tsiangpu. Memory
gives me nausea, real physical nausea,
and throw down my pen in despairing
distaste.'
A correspondent of the North China
Herald says lola could not, adequate
", describe the scenes one encounters in
a half hours walk. He writes:
Hunger and abomination, the abomi-
uation of desolation-and worse They
were eating leaves and grass and some
thing that might be rice, made into a
Cruel. They were-well, the truth is |
can't say anything more about them
except that they were human beings in,
or approaching, an extremity of the
direst description"
Every correspondent, paper and
English-speaking official in China bears
testimony to the fearless, efficient, pains
taking work done in distributing outside
relief by the missionary and the civic
committees that have the matter in
charge. When you decide that you will
save a life by your contribution you may
rest morally certain that that life will be
saved and that no one but a famine
sufferer will profit by your gift.
Contributions may be sent by postal
or express money order, or by check to
the Chinese Famine Relief Fund, los
Bible House, New York City. All contri-
buttons will be acknowledged by publ
cation in The Christian Herald and there
will be no delay in the transmission and
disposition of the money.
E. R. TOMBSTONE.