Year: 1877

the foreigners resident in China and dis


tributed by the Protestant missionaries


IN the North.


The cause of the famine is the same


az that from which India is now suffer


ing. The crops of last summer were,


we are told, almost entirely destroyed


by drought, and the Peasantry have


new come to an end of their slender


reserves of grain, and have nothing left


on which they can fall back for support.


China is country in which at the best


OF times the population presses very
! closely upon the means of subsistence.


There are no waste stores anywhere.


Everything is already turned to account,
and when the necessity comes there is
little room for any further saving or
reduction Land and water are alike
taxed to the uttermOst to furnish food
and dwelling-space for the teeming
multitudes which cover them. The
Chimes are hard workers, centepted with
slender fare, and able to put up com
fortably with a general scale of living
which would be simply intolerable to
Englishmen. These qualities and habits,
which turn to their advantage abroad
when they are brought into competition
with other races, are source OF dagger
TO them at home. The Chinese can
undersell the Irish immigrant and the
native "white trash in the distant
labor market of California. They can
not be equally sure that they will obtain
the poor pittance with which they will
be satisfied in China In ordinary seasons
they can pull through well enough, and
can thrive and think themselves well off
on the slender material supplies with
which they have learned to be content.
But when the pinch comes, as come it
must sometimes when the parched
earth will no longer yield its accustomed
increase, or when the store of food for
any reason begins 20 fail, the suffering
is speedy and severe. It is a question
then. not of the surrender of luxuries
which can at any rate be spared, but of
the want of the bare necessities which it
IS impossible to forego and live. To the
great eastern hive, thickly swarming
with its uncounted millions OF inhabi-
tants,It ,Ithe chance of famine is never far
distant, and the worst reality of famine
arrives very easily. 1t is present among
them now, and it is fearful to think of
the intense and widespread misery which
it will bring with it before it has run its
course. There is the hope, our CORE
spondent writes, of good crops in the
coming season for those who survive.
The snow, which does much TO aggravate
the present distress, is at least a security
against the reoccurrence Of another
drought. But itholds out no early hope
of relief. When summer comes all will
be well for those who are alive to witness
it, and to enjoy the plenty which is in
prospect for them. Meanwhile, in the
dreary weeks which still remain the suf
fering is growing worse. The people
have been driven already to their last
resources: and they have proved to be in
sufficient. The total loss it is not easy
to estimate. We hear of villages Of five
hundred families with three hundred re-
ported as dead from starvation. This,
or something like it appears to be the
actual condition of some 5000 villages,
and there are others besides in which the
pressure is less extreme, but still terribly
severe. The numbers of the dead, it is
clear, must be already reckoned by mil
lions, but we can hazard no conjecture
as to the total which viii have been
reached before the return of summer
London Times, May 1.