HORRID SCENES IN CHINA.

Timaru Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 1350, 17 January 1879, Page 3

HORRID SCENES IN CHINA.

Again Shantung has been heard from, and if the province ever needed help it would seem to be now. On the 4th of April we read " that famine increased daily ; no rain has fallen, and the ground is as dry as a bone. The distracted mothers, unable to still the hopeless, unanswered cries of their children, expend their last efforts to 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 m passing the barking of dogs, and the singing of children at play, now all is hushed and still " — the dogs eaten and the people too weak to laugh and sing, or do aught but pray for food or speedy death. Here is what one of tho distributors writes of the condition : "Up to the present time the people contented themselves with eating those who had died, but now they kill the living m order to have them for food. Husbands eat their wives, parents eat their sons and daughters, and children eat their parents." Women and girls are sold at less than two dollars a piece, and human flush is offered for sale m 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 throat of their little daughter, eight ypars old. The little girl bpgan to weep at the sight of the fatal knife, and the neighbors arrived just m time to save her." (Note by Pere Aynier) : " Sometimes parents, so that they may not be themselves horrible executioners of their children, agree with other parents —I will kill his child for him, and he shall kill mine." It is the same story of all the provinces, and bodies of men combine to attack the smaller hamlets, not to rob them of treasure or seek revenge for wrongs inflicttd. 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 m these five provinces almost indefinitely, for only half is told, and that half is weak and tame as compared to the actual facts, but the particulars of the latest reports are so revolting that it is inexpedient to further their publicity. The wildest imagination never pictured atrocities or suffering equal to the scenes so common now throughout the famine region, and what tbe future has m 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 can meet the requirements, and m the interval China will be decimated. To expect the foreign community to continue to any great extent their liberal contributions of the past, is, m the face of the universal stagnation of trade, unreasonable, and for the future it must devolve on the benevolently disposed of all nations to alleviate, so far as may be, the sorrows and sufferings 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 too given to peculation and self-aggrandise-ment, to give us hope that necessity may stimulate them to efficient action. So far the aid from this source has been shamefully inadequate and intermittent, conaiating very largely m the remission or postponement of taxes they would have found it possible to collect. Even such material aid as was extended, was unavailable, through lack of means to transport it, and I know of no sadder satire on the exclusive policy'of China, than her Government stores of mouldering grain, starving millions scarce two hundred miles away, and the rusting rails and mossgrown road-bed of the Woosung railroad, as a monument against her. In closing J may state that the total foreign aid so far amounts to 13,016,370 taels, of which America has contributed a paltry 200 taela. I have done, and if my story diverts a Bingle 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 tracts, or that the prayer of gratitude from a poor wretch saved from death, is sweeterthan fulsome eulogies from wealthy corporations, then shall I be what now I am not. — Shanghai correspondent of the New York Herald.