Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1908-10-30
What CROP FAILURE
means IN. in [ HINA
DR.. EDWoRDS TELLS or THE
SAD SPECTACLE OF STRv-. r.
ING PEOPLE.


Soochow, China, March 31-Special
correspondence, Steele Ozone.-Prob-
ably nowhere else, in the world does
a crop failure bring more distress
than in China. 1t is well that these
people have no nerves, and stand
suffering with a stoicism that would
| put to blush the fakirs of India, for
if they were not so constituted be-
lieve there would be an epidemic of
suicide that would sweep the race
from the face of the earth, I have
seen such suffering as would drive
Caucasian insane, born with no ap-
parent feeling by Chinese. Misery so
deep as to be impossible of descrip-
ton, has no effect upon them. I
fhave passed through such scenes as
not even Dante in his inferno could
lconceive of, nor could Dore with all
his wonderful powers of Imagination
depict. ,&"E
There has been crop failure over
a great part Of China, and millions
of people are on the verge of actual
starvation. They have abandoned
their homes and congregate near the
large cities in vast camps, where
| pestilence stalks daily, and thousands
die every night In one such camp
near Soochow there are nearly half
million people, of all ages, sexes
and conditions. In such miserable
rags that they cannot be called cloth.
ing, they sit at the entrance of little
huts, or shelters that cannot he call
ed anything but burrows, and there
they wait for the government to send
them food, and there they die like
flies because the food does not come
Such awful restitution, combined
with such terrible filth, cannot be
told in languages that would bring tc
the readers fun realization of con.
l ditions here. I saw a carrier going
l along with O. horse He had a bag
z of oats on his saddle, and amid the
filth and dirt OF the roadway, some
=. of these oats fell to the ground. I'm
: mediately there was rush and
; scramble. and dozen of the stary
ing men, women and children were
: down on their knees eating the oats
3 (which mingled with the filth. Fol
t half an hour after every possible
t grain was found these wretched Peep
: pie dug about in the filth to see i
0 there might possibly be anothe
8 grain.
We speak of a person being ski
and bones, but really we need Sc
some of the starving Chinese to knoy
what the expression means. Some o
them are so near skin and bones tina
the bones actually make their wa
through the skin. II there ever wer
a feeling of fear in my mind tina
y some day the hundreds of millions O
Chinese might take it into thei
heads to become world power AM
overrun the rest OF the world, tina
e idea was completely knocked out b
q sight of the conditions of the PEG
l. pie. 1t would be an utter impossi
l. bility for such people as those eve
]. to attain to anything like a worl
v power in the sense OF a warlike pow
n er. IL
IS Hundreds of these people are S
It far gone that they lie in the roa
/ with staring eyes and powerles
limbs. The others pay absolutely n
st attention to them but pass them b
r or even step over them, careless {
If the feelings of the dying ones {
Ie4 whether they step on the body {
IS not, and they lie there and die, an
al lthen lie there until some one in a,
IS thority comes along to order the bod
d buried. asked why It was this
{ some OF the better class people di
lie mot take pity on some of the wretche
I, lying about at their door. and wa
ID told that Ii anyone assisted one /
Is these wretches he would become Ii
ot BILE for all his debts and would /
compelled to care for him and fee
If him and get medical attendance Il
re- him too One cannot do indiscTin