The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1921-04-15
VICTIMS OF THE famine
CHINESE ARE GREAT SUE.
FERERS, IS STORY
Mrs. Eleanor Franklin Egan
Has Written Most Sorrow
full Narrative

Describing the famine victims OF
Northern China as almost terrify-
ing in their misery" Mrs. Eleanor
Franklin Egan, writing for The Sat-
urday Evening Post of Philadelphia,
from the Province Of Chilli, declares
that "the average person among the
people who stand in dignif1ed appeal
before the gates of charity in China
would almost rather die than beg"
For the most part" the writer
continues, they are ordinarily COM
Portable farmers, victims now Of a
great natural calamity that has mar
rowed their margin of self reliance
to the vanishing point. The sight of
them is, think, the saddest thing |
do much for the throngs except to
get individual records and try to
place an occasional person here and
there where relief is being dispen-
sed; but some buildings have been
cleared out to make room for women
and girl refugees. AS many women as
possible have been put to work OF
various kinds unnecessary: sewing
anything to keep them busy and
they have earned the food which is
given them, while the little girls
many Of them rescued from the pur-
chasing agents of the city houses Of
bondage-are set at the study of
Chinese phonetic script, the idea be-
ing to open their minds.
Description Of Homes
Mrs. Egan described few of the
homes she visited in the heart OF the
worst famine district in Chilli. "In
the first howell we entered" she
children. The father had gone away
to look for work and food. The wo-
mans body was just covered, and
that's all. She had gone out in her
thin rags and claimed her allotment
of grain at the relief headquarters,
and was beaming gratitude. but her
children were literally unclothed. A
young girl had on a single unbe-
lievably ragged garment Of thin cot
ton, and the boys shared among them
some scraps of something, but the
baby, about year old. was naked as
God made her. Out OF habit they all
huddled together on cold khang and
the baby was curled up in the corner
under bit of rag.
"She was quiet as mouse. Chin
csc babies seldom cry. But when we
stood her on her wabbly legs to put
her into a little suit she was shak-
ing as with an ague.
when we got her all covered up
you should have seen her pat her
self. 1t was evident she was wonder
her, but 1t was worth something to
see the look OF suffering fade out of
her baby eyes.
Abode Like Ice House
'.In the next hut we found woman
and baby. The woman had single,
thin cotton garment hanging in rags,
while the baby was wrapped in odds
and ends. This woman also had re-
ceived her grain, burt her terrible
abode was like an ice house. An old
er child had frozen to death two
uncoffined. The woman was -wailing
in miserable grief, accompanied by
hardly less wretched neighbors in
such a chorus as one might expect to
find three floors below street level
in Hades. The husband, father of
this family, also had gone to q far
place to find work and food.
Next door I wandered without
guidance into a mud noored, bare,
dle-aged emaciated woman croucned
all alone against the wall. She turn
ed her eyes up at the unusual sight
must have been, with neither cur
iosity, resentment nor appeal. It was
a look Of lethargy and 1t was plain to
be seen that she was a victim of
starvation and didn't have much far
Their to CO. She had a little basket
partly filed with dried elm leaves
and nothing more. She had been eat
ing these, or trying to. She had some
of them soaked up in a little bowl Of
water, and a more sickening mess I
never looked at. ..-.
"She had heard grain was to be
ct and was too weak to make the ef-
fort to get one.
"This town is typical of hundreds.
Sixty per cent and more of it's pop
ulation are utterly destitute"