The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-05-02
CHINA IN DISTRESS Bridgeport Citizens Appealed to For Help by the Famine
 Relief Committee
Deacon E. w. Marsh Will Act as Treasurer of the
 Fund

Bridgeport has been appealed to by the China Famine Relief Committee of the United States for help to aid the starving multitudes of China. President Taft, as the head of the National Red Cross society, with ating, has himself placed this appeal with his endorsement before the coun- try. The conditions are stated as follows by Lieut.. Charles F. Cannon who has spent seventeen years in China:
 We know so little of China and the Chinese. yet have grown so un- consciously familiar with the stupen- dous calamities which from time to time afflict that great country, that only the intermittent alarm of fre- Quent famine stories brings us to a an ddeath in the great flood-stricken area of China. These horrors are not alone of starvation, but of that stalk ing, ghastly famine fever we call has already laid it's black hand upon many of the impoverished starving multitudes.
 The great famine of 1878, taking it's terrible toll of upwards Of ten million lives, aroused the attention and sym pathy of the whole world, and the generous response to the appeal of the Famine Committee at that time did much to break down the barriers of anti-foreign feeling which up to then had been insurmountable.
 The present famine, unlike the to excessive rains, followed by ty- phoons and floods, affecting an area of over 5O,O00 square miles and population of over 100000 people.
 Past experience has rendered possi- ble the distribution of famine relief on most systematic and economical basis. The pauperizing effect resulting to some extent from relief operations in other famines, has been practically eliminated in this.
 The famine fund Is being largely used in employing the famine suffer CTS 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 fu- ture occurrences of this nature.
 Wages are paid fin food only, and this reward is necessarily so limited as to offer inducements only to those truly deserving. To save and sustain life is the object of the famine re- lief, and since the means never equals the neeo, the ratlOnS must De care fully 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 hardly struggling to retain it's 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 given the necessities 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 ane- mia he must be passed by for those more terribly needy.
 It 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 sor- did life, devoid of many things we ence and with every. form of luxury unknown. For what the Chinese know as prosperity we should regard as the severest hardship, as it means a coarse and meager living 8 cramped and cheerless hut, and the most try
 
 until the fall of darkness. There is little surplus. Hence, when drought or flood destroys the crops there is nothing for the hard working farmers to fall back upon.
 A large family is often divided: at home. Those remaining take stock of what they have. They perhaps find sufficient grain for the five months that are left, for four months if they eat but small quantity. But now the farmer knows that the four months supply must last them seven months. Therefore they immediate ly begin to make their food thin, that is, they eat gruel instead of bread Thus tens of thousands live through the famine who must otherwise die. This gruel gets thinner and thinner, leaves, greens or even bark and roots where these can be found, and less and less of grain. Every resource is used to obtain edible herbs, and ev- erything not poisonous is put into the pot to help fill up: There is, however, and the bodies of the suffering family grow thinner and thinner until fin ally their stomachs and faces become bloated and distorted from the. un- healthful elements on which they Vain ly strive to retain life.
 MT. Jameson, the Red Cross engi- neer in the field. writes of processions of gaunt, starving people wandering aimlessly, hopelessly along the roads, and falling and dying in the mud when they can go no further Day after day he passed dead bodies of men. women and children lying where they had fallen. Famine conditions are indeed so desperate and terrible so beyond the power of imagination to picture, that the descriptions re- ceived from different regions seem in- credible. With every day these con ditions become more acute and must so continue till harvest. The bark has been eaten from the trees roots have been dug up and devoured and even cannibalism is resorted to in the mad craze and unbearable gnaw- ings of starvation.
 The recent state of civil war great ly increased the distress caused by failure of crops, and the unsettled po- litical conditions still existing make it impossible for the new government to do much in aid of the sufferers For this reason 1t becomes imperative that the United States, always China's friend, should come generously to the front with help. The remarkable pa tience of the Chinese under suffering makes relief comparatively easy, if only the means are supplied.
 So prompt and systematic were the