The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1912-04-26
Charles F. Cannon Tells Of
Chlna's Hungry Millions.
$4,000 MILES ARE AFFECTED
Relief Fund Used Largely In Employ
ing Sufferers to Reconstruct Dikes
and Roads Destroyed by Excessive
Floods-PeopIe Work For Food.


Of that great country's distress:
I'm period of 1000 years China has
had over 800 famines, yet practically
all Of these have been unknown to the
world at large. The great famine OF
1878, taking its terrible toll of 9,000,-
600 to 100000 lives, aroused the at
tention ana sympathy of the whole
world, and the generous response
which followed the appeal of a famine
committee at that time did much to
break down the barriers of anti-foreign
feeling which up to then had been in
surmountable.
THE present famine, unlike the
drought famine of 1873, has been due
to excessive rains. followed by ty-
phoonE and foods, affecting an area Of
over $4,000 square miles and n pOpu-
latiOn Of over 100000 people.
Past experience has rendered pos
sible the distribution Of famine relief
on a most systematic and economical
basis. The pauperizing effect result
ing TO some extent from relief opera
tons in other famines, due to affording
support to thousands during prolonged
periods of enforced idleness. has been
practically eliminated in this.
How Fund 10 Ussd.
"The famine fund is being largely
used in employing the sufferers to re-
construct their own dikes and roads,
which were destroyed by the floods.
Thus the idle and despairing people
are enabled to earn living while wait
| ing for another harvest and are at the
same time helping to restore normal
conditions and to prevent future occur
rences Of this nature. Wages are paid
sarily so limited as to offer induce
ments only to those truly deserving
To save and sustain life is the object
of famine relief, and since the means
never equals the need the rations must
be carefully distributed and those who
are suffering least ignored for those
whose necessities are vital.
"These extreme cases make no dem
onstration. They have got beyond that.
They do not even beg, but are mute
and motionless, the spark of life hardly
struggling to retain its hold upon their
emaciated forms. Sometimes when they
understand that the ticket given them
means food and life tears roll down
their cheeks. Tickets for food are CIV
en- only in the home, except in ex-
change for labor, the necessaries of
each family being judged not by the
home, but by the faces of it's inmates.
A man may be hungry and suffering
for food, but unless his face is swollen
from anaemia he must be passed by
for those more terribly needy. Were it
not that through centuries of poverty
| and extreme hardship only the strong
have survived half the 100000 now
suffering would have died in the first
months Of the famine.
Horror Difficult to Realize.
"It is difficult for US to realize the
real horror Of these extensive famines,
confined almost wholly to China, India
and Russia. Under the best conditions
the Chinese live but a sorGid life, de-
as necessary to existence and with
every form Of luxury unknown. What
the Chinese know as prosperity we
should regard as the severest hardship,
as 1t means a coarse and meager liv-
ing, cramped and cheerless hut and
the most trying toll from the rising Of
the sun until the FALL of darkness.
milk and butter are practically un-
known, meat Is rarely tasted oftener
than once a week, and then only under
| prosperous conditions, and in the fat
years there is little surplus to be saved
| for the lean years Of famine Hence
/ when drought or food destroys the
crops there is nothing for the hard
working farmers TO fall back upon.
Conditions Existing Today.
'In the case of a man of nI,. h, he
sells first his COW, the water buffalo
that plows his fields, then his farm
utensils, and finally his household
goods. One by one all are "eaten up"
as he would say. Then the doors and
windows are taken from the mud brick
| hut and carried to market, and at last
the few timbers that support the roof
go to nourtsh the family. Left at last
without roof. they join the endless
procession Of refugees. some to drop
and die where they fall and others TO
struggle and stagger onward in the
hope OF reaching some more prosper
Gus region. Often they are huddled into
tiny huts, hardly larger than a half
barrel, cut endwise and made OF cheap
mating, and in these camps pestilence
soon finds Its way, often in the form
OF relapsing fever, frequently the dead
ly typhus, and also in smallpox.
"These are the conditions existing to.
day over an immense area of China. It
/ Is tho rasnlf of three lam Years fol.