Flood and Famine.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7069, 7 January 1907, Page 4

Flood and Famine.

Letters were received in Sydney last week by the China Inland Mission giving fall details of tho devastation and disaffection in some parts of China. It seems that owing to the unprecedentedly heavy rains during the months of June, July, August and September, a large part of the northern district of Kaingsu and An-huei provinces was flooded. The flooded districts were estimated as oovering an area of 40,000 square miles, supporting a population ot fifteen millions. None of the cropp, it appears, had been gathered, and all the necessaries of life had doubled in price. Thousands of houses were destroyed and thousands of people were living on one meal a day,and often that meal wascomposed only of gruel and eweofc potato leaves. The farmers were selling their working animals to buy food, and had no wheat to plant for next year'e crops. The Eev. S. C. Patterson, writing from the Southern Presbyterian Mission at Such ion, under date 10th October, says:—"There is only one item —Want! Famine! It is on us with its savage flights, its anaemia, ts sickening languor, and its fevers, Perhaps there are ten million souls in the area affected. A trip northwards from Chinkiang now gives one an idea of the i'earfnl floods. All along the canal water is in the bouses, and boats are anchored at the doorposts. The lakes which lie west of Paoying and Kaoyiu, and cover quite 1000 square miles in normal seasons, are now nearly 10ft higher than usual. The yellow flood wrinkling and glinting on the horizon tells a tale of the woe left in its track. On seeing an old acquaintance, and hearing of the almost absolute failure of his oropa, I asked,' If that is true, now tell me, honestly, how you, with yoar twelve mouths to feed, are living at all ?' He said they had een living on elm and sweet potato leave?, mixed with a handful of grain, and boiled. He calculated cbat even such poor food would only last Mil !>ew Year, and after that he did not know what would happen, and they would probably not at all be able to spa another harvest," Another writer says: " Robbers thieves, tramps, and rcwdies are said to be everywhere, made desperate by theiir^loßS of food. I have not been able to hear of a single community where there was not disorder. We hear sickening stories of abandoned children. My servants report having ?een children several years old thrown oat, tied bo that they could not follow their parents home."