New-York tribune., 1920-12-19
THEIR men folks hare
Il gone aaOay seeking aUork
>Und food g

Il gone aaOay seeking aUork
>and food
Other refugees, she said, had left
their children tied to the village
gate. Six or seven had been found
there dead when the gates were
opened in the morning.
At another village inquired as
usual whether children were being
sold there. / was asked suspiciously
by one man why I wanted to know.
Had come to buy children for for
eign use? The legend is not dead
yet that foreigners use the eyes of
Chinese children to make magnify
ing glasses and cut out their hearts
to make medicine. | disclaimed any
motive but curiosity. AS / was 60
ing one old woman came up to me.
If did want to buy children, she
said, she had two.
To Save the Children
The selling of children is not so
callous as it seems. The motive is
not in the main to get money
though in the starving that is un-
derstandable, too. 1t is principally
the hope of finding home for the
child where it can be fed. AS many
children are given away as sold. /
could have brought a hundred along
with me on the mere promise Of CIV
ing them something to eat.
But for an individual to give re-
lief here now is precarious, as I have
discovered. A few nights ago 1
came into the village of Chang CHA
Chuang for the night. There
grouped around me at the inn a cir
Gle of the village elders, much of the
rest Of the population crowding in
behind them and stretching out of
the door into the courtyard the in
evitable small boys instinctively
drawn by the promise of new excite
ment. For spokesman there was
Chang Chun-shu, village headman.
Rich but Starving
He himself was we'll to do, he said.
He had thirty acres of land. From
that he had not had an ounce Of
grain. He had already sold half his
land at one-tenth the price, the buy
ers being dealers from the big cities.
Profiteering, it should be said in pass
ing, exists to a shocking degree.
Land, animals, clothes and furniture
are being bought up at prices ham,
mered down to the lowest level and
in proportion to the need of the
seller, to be sold back next year at
double the normal price. The Chi
nese has not made himself the
worlds master bargainer without
learning also the seamy possibilities
of trade.
He had sold half his land, the
headman continued, but now he
could not find a buyer for the rest.
He was living, therefore, on the
wild gatherings of the ground, and
it had gone hard on him and his.
His people had been in that viii
lage for nineteen generations-as
the name of the village indicates, it
is the home of the Chang clan. He
was seventy-four years old and the
head of his family in this genera
tion. There were nineteen under his
roof now--his wife, their three sons
and their children. Three had died
in the last eight weeks Of hunger,
he said, but from his description I
knew it to be cholera. They had
come to the point where they could
eat weeds no longer. The House Of
Chang was about to be scattered. He
was to remain behind. He
was too old for the rigors Of the
road, and somebody had to stay to
look after the home and the little
plot Of land. The others were going
next week; where, they did not know.
And he fell to his knees and sobbed.
After the one sleeps oil candle
had burned low and all but the vel
low-bronze faces had blended into
the shadows Of the mud walls the