The Famine in Shantung. Two SELECTIONS FROM REV. TIMOTHY RICHARD. THE suffering here is terrible. Almost the whole province of Shantung suffers severely from the effects of the drought of last year; but the suffering of the eight hiens, for the relief of which the Government has made a grant of Tls. 43,000 (a mere pittance for such a calamity), is beyond description. These eight hiens are Lin-k'ü, I-tu, Ch'anglo, Way-hien, Le-ngan, Show-kwang, Lin-tsz, Po-hing. Of these, Lin-k'ü, which suffers most, received Tls. 10,000 for its relief. All are in Ching-chow Fu except Way-hien. Much sad change has come over the place during the last two months. Although the distribution of gruel has been doubled, yet the suffering is more than doubled, for the people have eaten up the little crop they got in the autumn, and now they are in the direst plight. In the summer the great cry of the mass of the people was for rain, rain. Now it is for very life. Having finished their corn, they eat grain-husks, potatoe stalks, and elm bark, buckwheat stalks, turnip leaves, and grass seeds, which they gather in the fields, and sieve the dust off. When these are exhausted, they pull down their houses, sell their timber, and it is reported everywhere that many eat the rotten kaoliang reeds (sorgum stalks) from the roof, and the dried leaves of which they usually burn for fuel. Of their eating fuel-leaves there is no doubt. Thousands eat them, and thousands die because they cannot get even that. They sell their clothes and children. Having no clothing left to protect them from the cold, many take refuge in pits, built under ground, to keep themselves warm by the fetid breath of the crowd, which is bought dearly. In the east suburb of Ching-chow city there are four such pits. Onethird of the number (240) originally put in them are now dead within six weeks, and yet no sooner is one corpse carried out, than a crowd is struggling for the place! Those who have land to sell can only dispose of it at the astounding reduction of 85 per cent. One hundred thousand worth is now daily sold at fifteen thousand! Villages of 500 families report 300 dead of starvation; villages of 300 report one hundred persons dead. Show-kwang, a big hien, contains one thousand six hundred villages. A moderate hien has about a thousand villages. I leave you to calculate the thousands upon thousands which must have perished already. Out of a family of four, three are dead of starvation, and the fourth, a little boy, is under my care; another little boy, not recovered from small-pox, was brought to me because his father died last night. A young woman of twenty was found dead in a temple close by this morning. Who is dead or dying? is the subject of everybody's conversation; and the worst is yet to come, I fear. The numbers of those who go for gruel daily is so great that they can only get six or eight cash worth each (and that is not at the cheap rate of Shanghai). Many have had nothing but this to live upon for some time. Such people are getting so weak that young men of twenty cannot walk the distance of ten li for it, so they linger on a few days and die. If it is thus with the youths, what must be the condition of children and old people? There is no help for them but to wait their doom. What I have done for these with the money at my disposal I will let you know at another time. Besides those now at home, as many families have broken up for ever, each one to struggle for life as shipwrecked sailors struggle with the waves. Many parents will never see their children again, and many children will come back to learn that their parents have died from the famine. Such suffering is sufficient to wring the hardest heart. None could see their pitiable condition without helping them. Yet though the cry of the starving and the dying be only feebly echoed, by another's voice, surely it will not be in vain. Alas! there are no means of speedy communication, but I will wait on in faith, believing that some measure of succour will be sent. Not since the 51st year of Kien-lung, ninety years ago, has there been any such suffering in this province as now exists. The cry of thousands in agony from hunger and cold day and night incessantly is ringing in our ears, and by generous and immediate aid many of them may yet be saved. Three months hence it will be too late. P.S. Since writing the above, my teacher, whom I sent three days ago to make inquiries about Lin-k'ü, arrived, and gives still more sad accounts of things there. One village had one hundred and eighty inhabitants last summer, now there remain ninety-three only, forty are dead, and the rest gone away. Considering the number of the dead and the expense of burying, a pit has been dug in the north-east suburb. It is called Nan-sin-k'éng (ten thousand men pit), and there the dead are cast. There he saw some of the few dogs still uneaten, feeding on the corpses. Speaking after careful calculation in the language of sober sad truth, it is said that one-half of the people in many villages of Lin-k'ü will not live to see the wheat crop ripen. You will not believe me if I add more. Are their not natives as well as foreigners who will contribute after learning of the heartrending calamities of their fellow-men? Since writing last, I have been out every day to make further arrangements towards relieving the distress of these many thousands who are starving. In the seven places in the eastern half of I-tu hien alone, there are in cach from six to ten thousands getting millet gruel. In one of these places, Kao-shing-tang, there are often from fifteen to twenty thousand. One day within twenty li of road travelled, I got the following information:-At Ch'i-kien, a village of two hundred families, I found that thirty families had pulled down their houses to sell the timber and thatch for food; thirty families had gone away, and twenty individuals were dead from starvation. At Kiang-kia-low, with a population of thirty to forty families, forty-seven individuals had died of starvation. At Li-kia-chwang, out of a hundred families, formerly well off, thirty persons were already dead of starvation. At Po-wang, out of sixty families, forty persons were dead, and sixty gone away. At Ma-soong, out of forty families, forty individuals had perished. These are the only villages I made inquiries at that day. They are not picked out as specimens of the greatest suffering. In the same twenty li I saw a man dead on the roadside, with a dog watching him ominously. Before I had gone out of sight of this distressing spectacle I met a father and son carrying a beam black with soot. They had thirty li to go to sell it for fuel and would get only one hundred and fifty cash for it. The son had not recovered from smallpox, but was obliged to get up or starve. Entering the village which was then before us, and inquiring if any had starved in it, they said a great many had starved, and as many more were sold. "As for starving there is this house," they said, "it had seven persons two months ago, only a boy of thirteen remains, and who will die in a day or two." (This boy I took under my care). A few li farther on, a number of magpies were picking a skull from a corpse close by. At the end of the twenty li we found that the only schoolmaster in that village had died of starvation a few days ago. I took in his starving boy. The sad cases just mentioned as occurring within such a short distance as twenty li do not complete the list. I have another little boy, the only one left of a family of six. The grandmother committed suicide, the father and a sister died of starvation, another sister was sold, and the mother got married (?) (anything to live). Every market has heaps of doors and windows cut up for fuel. Every village has houses pulled down, and the country presents the appearance it may have done had a raid of rebels passed over it, with this difference, that the suffering caused by the rebels over a large extent is of far shorter duration. It is seriously calculated that in very many villages only half of the inhabitants will see the wheat ripe. I trust. that for this extraordinary distress extraordinary generosity will be shown. It is not charity to the poor for which I plead, but life to the dead. There is not a moment to lose :-thousands lie dying while I write, and thousands more will have died before this can reach you. The morality is daily on the increase. Snow covers the ground so that the poor creatures can pick up nothing to stay the pangs of their gnawing hunger. Three months hence some weeds will grow, and the trees will be in leaf, and on these the poor creatures can support themselves. Now the frozen groun d yields nothing but pits for the dead! The Government is far too careless (or rather helpless). Let us foreigners show a better example and help our fellow-men. Instead of indiscriminately distributing the balance of the monies forwarded to me by the Rev. J. Thomas, the Rev. W. Muirhead, the Misses Laisun and other friends, I have opened four places for receiving orphans, and have undertaken to support them until the famine is over. With the fall of silver value, and the rise of the price of grain, it will take a dollar and a quarter to provide for one child for a month. Who will volunteer to be father or mother of these poor orphans for three or four months? Five dollars will save four every month, five thousand dollars will save four thousand lives, and probably more, if relief can be afforded upon anything like an extensive scale. Many, doubtless, who will read these lines, have given already, perhaps more than once; but I implore your pity to be moved yet again. The snow is on the ground, and the poor creatures are not only starving, but freezing to death. Cannot the natives of Shanghai be also stirred up to do something for Lin-k'ü hien, which is said to be suffering most intensely of all? Besides gratitude to heaven for the good harvest they have had in the neighbourhood of Shanghai, pure pity for their fellow-men will surely yield something and something great for the alleviation of such terrible distress. Though the Government has granted more money to Lin-k'ü than to any one hien besides, the suffering is far less efficiently relieved there than in other places.-12th February. N.B.-The Committee have sent Mr. Richard prompt relief, but there is need for far more. Contributions will be thankfully received at the Mission House. General Committee, 1877-8. Bacon, Mr. J. P., Walthamstow. Bloomfield, Rev. J. Gloucester. Bowser, Mr. A. T., F.R.G.S., Clapton. Goode, Mr. C. H., St. John's Wood. Green, Rev. S. G., D.D., London. Hanson, Rev. W., South Shields. Jones, Rev. D., B.A., Brixton Hill. Landels, Rev. W., D.D., Regent's Park. Leonard, Rev. H. C., M.A., Bournemouth. McMaster, Mr. J. S., London. Medley, Rev. E., B.A., Nottingham. Millard, Rev. J. H., B.A., Huntingdon. Parry, Mr. J. C.. Kensington. Price, Rev. T., Ph.D., Abardare. Short, Rev. G., B.A., Salisbury. Templeton, Mr. J., F.R.G.S., London. Tymms, Rev. T. V., Clapton. THE MISSIONARY HERALD. W Visits to my District. By the REV. G. H. ROUSE, M.A. HEN Mr. Kerry removed to Barrisal, in April, 1876, he asked me to take over for him charge of the churches in the Twenty-four Pergunnahs, as the district is called, South of Calcutta. The district is a vast rice-field, covered with water two or three feet deep, in which the rice grows during the rainy season from June to October, drying up during the cold season from November to February, and quite dry during the hot season from March to June. The villages in the district are built on mounds of earth, raised a few feet above the surface of the ground, which form little islands during the half year that the water remains on the fields. The whole delta of the Ganges is a flat alluvial deposit, without hill or hillock, or even a single stone or pebble belonging to it. In conversation lately with one of our more intelligent native evangelists, I happened to speak of the hills. "Hills," said he, “I have never seen such a thing in all my life." Our churches are scattered about in some of these little island villages. The nearest is about eight miles from Calcutta, and the furthest, Khari, about fifty. The history of the work is interesting. It commenced about fifty years ago. Calcutta preachers visited, among other places, a village about three miles from Calcutta, and their message was welcomed by some peasants from Khari, who had come to this village. They received the message and carried it to their home. Afterwards others joined them, both there and at Luckyantipore, a village about twelve miles to the north of Khari. A terrible storm, which devastated that part of the country about thirty years ago, led many other families to join the Christian community, with mixed motives, no doubt, but many of whom became true Christians, just as many came to Christ, when He was on earth, for bodily healing, and received besides that blessing, the welcome words, "Thy sins be forgiven thee." The villages in the northern circle of churches were originally an offshoot from the work of the London Missionary Society. So the work spread, but, as the Lord has forewarned us, "offences began to come-not from the heathen, but, alas! from Christians. The soon |