Brownsville herald. [volume] (Brownsville, Tex.) 1910-current, 1912-04-16
CHINESE HORRORS
ARE BEYOND BELIEF
LIEUT.. CHAS f. CANNON GRAPH
ICALLY DESCRIBES THEM.
Dead Bodies of Men, Women and
Children Strew the Muddy Roads
Along Which They Had Aimlessly
Wandered in Hope of Relief.


the Chinese, yet have grown SO un-
! consciously familiar with the stu
pendous calamities which from time
to time afflict that great country
that only the intermittent alarm"
Of frequent famine stories brings to
us real sense Of the horrors-the
suffering and death-in the great
floOd-stricken area of China; hor-
rors not alone of mere starvation,
but of that stalking, CHASTITY famine
fever we call typhus and the raging
smallpox which has arleady laid its
black hand upon many of the i'm
poverished, starving mutitudes.
In period of 1000 years China
has had over 500 famines, yet prac-
tically all Of these have been un-
known to the world at large The
great famine of 1878, taking its ter
rible toll of nine to thirteen million
lives, aroused the attention and
sympathy of the whole world and the
generous response which followed
the appeal of famine committee at
that time did much to brea1 down
the barriers Of anti-foreign feeling
which up to then had been insur-
mOuntable.
The present famine unlike the
drought famine of 1878, has been
due to excessive rains, followed by
typhOons and floods, affecting an
area Of over $4,000 square miles
and a population of over 3,000,O 900
people.
Past experience has rendered pos
sible the distribution of famine re-
lief on a most systematic and
economical basis. The pauperizing
effect resulting to some extent from
relief operations in other famines,
due to affording support to thousands
during prolonged periods of en-
forced idleness, has been practically
eliminated in this.
The famine fund Is being largely
fused in employing the famine suf-
ferers to reconstruct their own
dykes and roads destroyed by the
floods. Thus the idle and despairing
people are enabled to earn a living
while waiting for another harvest,
and are at the same time helping TO
restore normal conditions and to
prevent future occurrences of this
nature. Wages are paid in food only,
and this reward is necessarily so
| limited as to offer inducements only
10 those truly deserving. T6-save
inc relief, and since the means never
equal 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 demonstra-
tion-they have gotten beyond that.
They do not even beg, but are mute
| and motiOnless, the spark of life
| hardly struggling to retain it's hold
upon their emaciated forms. Some
| dimes when they understand that the
| ticket given them means food and
| fife, tears roll down their cheeks.
! Tickets for food are given only in
| the home, except in exchange for
| labor, the necessities of each family
being judged. not by the home, but
| by the faces of its inmates A man
may be hungry and suffering for
food, but unless his face is swollen
from anemia he must be passed for
ithose more terribly needy Were it
not that through centuries of pow
erty and extreme hardship only the
strong have survived, half the three
million now suffering would have
Iidied in the first months Of the fam
line.
1t is difficult for us to realize the
real horror of these extensive fam
ines. confined almost wholly to
China, India and Russia. Under the
best conditions the Chinese live but
a sordid life, devoid Of many things
we would regard as necessary to
Existence and with every form OF
luxury unknown-for what the
Ehinese know as prosperity, We
should regard has severest hardships,
bs it means a coarse and meager
Diving. a cramped and cherries hut
hnd the most trying toll from the
hising of the sun until the fall OF
Darkness. Milk and butter are
practically unknown, meat is rarely
tasted oftener than once a Week, and
then only under prosperous condi
n tions, and in the fat years. there j,
little surplus to be saved for the lear
III years Of famine Hence. wher
drought or flood destroys the crops
there is nothing for the hard work