The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1921-03-24
0. A. C. BOY SEES
GRIM TRAGEDY
Starving Chinese Clamor For
Garbage Thrown From
Diner.

Conditions too appalling for descrip
ton and misery too awful to look upon
we're witnessed only six weeks ago III
the famine districts of North CHINA Dy
| w. A. Sellwood, Y. NJ. G. A. secretary
and graduate of o. A. c., who has Just
returned from IS months service III
| Russia and China, and who travelled
10 days, covering 500 miles, through
| the famine-stricken section from Pekln
near the northern boundary, TO Nan
king, near the Chinese coast.
J THAT ten-day journey was one long
horror" said Sellwood. Il am haunted
yet by the memory Of the drawn des-
pairing faces and the pitiable cries for
| food of the starving, halfnaked men,
women and children who crowded un-
der the train windows lifting up their
arms in desperate supplication to us,
every time the train slowed up or
stopped. There are 45,OOO,OOO Chinese
confronted with starvation in the
famine district, and the daily death
rate is $4,000 a day. Typhus ana
pestilence are adding their toll to that
of wholesale starvation, and condl-
tions are simply beyond any adequate
description.
'In Russia have seen corpses stack
ed up like cordwood, and many other
things very shocking to people VINO
live comfortable, wellordered lives
here in the United States, but these
were nothing to the tragic things that
were visible on every hand all along
the 800-mile journey through the
famine districts of north China. The
corpses were not stacked up in orderly
fashion as in Russia. The survivors
are too weak and wasted to under
take any such task, and those VINO
perish are left to lie where they fall,
or are rolled into streams nearby
Almost at any time we could look
out and see bodies floating in the
streams or lying about on the ground.
1t is a common thing for famine vic
tins to succumb while digging for
roots to eat, and the mute evidence OF
this last futile effort 10 secure some
morsel that will sustain life a little
longer, is visible on every hand; the
dead bodies of men, women and chill
dren may be seen lying beside the hole
in the ground that has been dug with |
sticks, or with the wasted claw-like |
hands of the starving. Long ago all |
dogs, cats and even rats have disap- |
peared in this land of horrors, except |
for a few wild, halfcrazed dogs that |
are dreaded by the emaciated human
creatures because they fight so
for food and sometimes at
tack the children in their desperate
hunger Everything eatable has been
eaten except leaves, roots and grass,
and these are rapidly being exhausted.
Where there are trees the bark from
these is also used, and most Of the
trees are dying as result This vege-
tation is ground UP into sort of meal,
and made into a kind of cake by mix
Ing with water 1t is baked when
fuel can be obtained. Millions of
Chinese are living on this diet alone.
"One of the most pitiable incidents
1f the journey was the wild clamor
al along the railroad at points where
he garbage from the dining car was
Jumped daily. Knowing approximate
y where to expect this garbage to be
Jumped, thousands of gaunt starving
,reatures gather for hours in advance