Year: 1878

| London Spectator. juno a.


| The official news received from Shang-
hal this week, aud dated the end of April,
| records the details of famine such as
even our horrible fsmines in India have
never yet approached in horror. It is
| something TO know that rain has fallen
since this information was sent off, and that
| in four or five months time-if anything
can be done to abate the horrors in the
interval-the agony of the suffering may
NO result till the crops which 1t renders
possible are reaped, and in the mean time
all the frightful incidents which we hear
of in these coldly accurate Chinese Blue
Books must go on, except 30 far as they
are prevented by Chinese or foreigners ex-
ertiops.


What these incidents are it wonld be
almost needleesly startling to explain,
were it dot for the fact that, if We are
rightly, Informed, every Ell which this
country'can send may prevent murder of
the most hideoos kinda mnrder of reia-
tracted cannibslism. Every fI received
from England, say the missionaries on the
spot, may save a life. But to save a life
is nothing in comparison with saving
parent from killing his children or child
from killing his parents for the same pur-
poses for which they would kill sheep or
oxen-nameiy, in order to use them as
meat. The mere suggestion is one which
revolts the very body almost as much as it
revolts the soul. Yet the dry official re-
port says: "In the earlier period Of dis
tress, the living fed upon the bodies Of the
weak, and now the general dest.tution has
arrived at such q climax that men devouT
those of their own feeh and blood. His
tory contains no record of 80 terrible and
distressing o state of things, and if prompt
measures of relief be not instituted the
lob al AnDnnnlaraA ~
The Chinese authorities themselves assert
that S ,O0H, 600 of people had died either of
the famine or of the violence of those who
wanted to avoid starvation for Themselves.
The Roman Catholic Bishop of Shansis
Mgr. Monagatts, completely con firms this
of this diabolic feast will not end with
itself. What sort of memories will the
population which has committed zach hor-
rors have in the time TO come, when they
are no longer necessary Can man who
has committed this horrible mixture of
parricide or matricide and cann,balism
calmly turn again to the decent work of
life, as if he were not corrupt in all his
limbs and in all his memory tOof Such sins
are the origin of long trails of transmitted
unclesnnees, which threaten posterity as
fearfully ss they threaten the society in
which they happen. or course, we do not
mean that in a society which is both heath
en- and possibly at least almost incapable
of the finer affections, these hideous mem
ories and associations will transmit quite
the same foul taint that they would In
Christian country. But allow what you
will for this, and the prospect is still fear
full enough. The man who cannot free
himself from the memory of sach unnat-
ural crimes which will appear to cleave to
his very body as we'll as his soul, can
| never lead q quite natural life again, or
even transmit to his children, If he should
ho- fran a Hnrtain
strain of unnatural experience. 1t is not q
subject to dwell on, but thus much must
| be said, that infinitely more important
| than any attempt to relieve the physical
| suffering is the attempt to break here and
there through the chain of the unnatural
ancestry to which the future population
| of the famine struck provinces seems likely
to look back. For that ancestry, indeed,


it can hardly feel anything but loathiDg,-
q horror not diminished by the reflection


that nothing can free them from the pollu-
| ton of such blood in their veins. The


ply sical misery of starvation is little, com
pared with the moral misery of race per-
petusted by the authors of such unnatural


crimes and sHch hideous Pacraments of de


epair.


And money can do 80 much now, not
merely in preventing death, or crime that


new Communications, the absence of which
| is responsible for a great deal of the worst


horror. The worst famine is in Shausi, to


which the nearest point available for


steamers is Tientsin, the point on the Pei


no occupied by our troops when we were


under the necessity of over er-awing the


Government in the neighboring capital of


Pekin. From Tientsin, to Tai Yuen, the


centre of the worst of the famine districts,


the distance is only about two hundred


miles-not further probably than from


London to Leeds, but the roads are so bad


and go over mountains' so high, that the


RELIEF party cent to help the famine struck


district took fifteen days to traverse them.


OF course nothing but beasts of burden can


be used at present over these rough roads,


across mountains of from 1900 to 5 600


feet in height, and yet this is the best


avenue apparently, by which food can


reach the depopulated district. For a


long time the Chinese Government have


been spending all their spare money on


Krupp guns, instead of on making theee


most necessary roads but If little Eu-
ropean help could be obtained the Govern


ment might now perhaps be sbamed into