HORRID SCENES IN CHINA.

Bruce Herald, Volume XI, Issue 1079, 17 January 1879, Page 7

HORRID SCENES IN CHINA.

Again Shantung has been heard from, and if the province ever needed help it would seem to be now. On April 4we read *' that famine increased daily ; no rain had fallen, and the ground is as dry as a bone. The dustracted mothers, un~ able to still the hopless, unanswered cries of the children, expend their last efforts in burying them alive to stop their moaning and end their miseries." Many villages present the same appearance as if a rebel horde had devastated them. As a Chinaman remarked, " Where only a short time ago, one heard in passing the barking of dogs, and the singing of children at play, now all ia hushed and still." — the dogs eaten, and the people too weak to laugh aud sing, or to do aught but pray for food or speedy death. Here is what one of the distributors writes o£ the condition : — " Up to the present time the people contented themselves with eating those who had died, but now they kill the living ia order to have them for food. Husbands eat their wives, parents eat their son3 and daughters, and children eat their parents." Women and girls are sold at less than two dollars apiece, and human flesh is offered for sale in the markets Writes another :" A mother after having, with her husband, eaten her little boy, six years old, whom they had themselves killed, prepared also to cut the tln-oat of their little daughter, eight years old. The little yirl began to weep at the sight of the fatal knife, and the neighbours arrived just in time to save her." [Note by Peter Aymer, '•' Sometimes parents, so they may not be themselves horrible execuiioners of their childien, agree with other parents— I will kill his c .ild for him, and he i-hall kill mine."] It is the same story of all the provinces, and bodies of men combine to attack the smaller hamlets, not to l'ob them of treasure or seek revenge for wi'ongs inflicted. Literally and truly they go about as wolves "seeking whom they may devour." It would be possible were it requisite, to continue the chapter of horrors existing in these five provinces almost inde6nitely, for only a half is told, and that half is weak and tame compared with the actual facts, but the particulars of the latest reports are so revolting that it is inexpedient to further their pnblicity. The wildest imagination never pictured atrocities or suffering equal to the scenes so common now throughout the famine region ; what the future has in store for them who can say ? These are not reminiscences of the past, but faithful statements of what is, and what must be the condition of China for months to come, for a brighter immediate future is not to be looked for. A full year must elapse before the natural fruits of the earth, or Government and private supplies with the best of management, will be able to cope with the requirements, and in the interval China will be decimated. To expect the foreign com- ! munity to continue to any great extent their liberal contributions of the past is, ia the face of the universal stagnation of trade, unreasonable, and for the future it must devolve on the benevolentlydisposed of all nations to alleviate, so far as may be, the sorrows and suffering of Cathay. To leave the victims to the mercy or enterprise of their rulers, is to leave them to perish, for the central Government is too utterly effete and bankrupt and its subordinate officials ton given to peculation and se!f-aggrandizement, to give us hope that necessity may stimulate them to effect action. So far the aid from this source has been shamefully inadequate and and intermitent, consisting very largely in the remission or postponement of taxes they would have found it impossible to collect. Even such material aid as was extended was unavailable through lack of means to transport it, and 1 know of no sadder satire on the exclusive policy cf China than her Government stores of mouldering grain, starving millions ncTes two hundred miles away, and the rnsting rails and moss-grown road-bed of the Woosung railroad, as a monument against her. In conclusion, I may state that the total foreign aid so far amounts to 13,016, 370 taels, of which America has contributed a paltry 200 taels. 1 have done : and if my stoi-y diverts a singe dollar from the thousand channels of sporadic charity, — if I can convince people that just now a pound of rice is worth a ton of tracks, or that the prayer of gratitude from a poor wretch saved from death is sweeter than fulsome eulogies from wealthy corporations, then shall I be what now I am not.