TERRIBLE RESULTS OF THE CHINESE FAMINE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 274, 26 September 1879, Page 2

TERRIBLE RESULTS OF THE CHINESE FAMINE.

Mr Forrest, the English Consul at

Tientsin, reports his belief that during the late famine in China, the deaths from starvation and want reached the enormous total of 6,soo,ooo—that is to say, that a population more than twice that of Portugal, was swept away within a few months. This estimate would appear scarcely credible, were it not supported by the report of Mr Hillier, of the Consular Service, who has lately visited the desola- | ted provinces. His account of the condition of things is deplorable in the extreme. Towns which a few years ago were busy, centres of trade, and villages which were populous and well-to-do, artf now silent and deserted f while house Jwhich used to teem with life are now ora; tenanted by the dead and the few survivors who are left to tell the "tale of |he miseries theyhaye undergone. this sight must be of this minglingW tte dead with the living, the explanation is even more ghastly. When the famine its height, the starving people, gi the fangs of hunger, and unable to obtain food, dug up the bodies of the buried dead. Survivors preferred therefore to share their homes with the coffins of their deceased friends, rather than run the risk of committing them to the uncertain keeping of the ground. At intervals, the sides of the roads are strewn irith the whitened bones of the wanderers who had laid down to die where their strength failed them; and the horror of the scene is aggravated by the presence of troops and of wolves. Soon after the outbreak of the famine, large quantities of stores were collected by the Chinese Government at Tientsin and elsewhere, for transmission to the famine stricken districts, but owing to bad roads and inefficient meanf of transport, they arrived on the spot in such

small quantities and at such uncertain in tervals, that they failed to do more thai relieve tho sufferings of a few. " Camels : oxen, mules and donkeys," says Mr Forrest, " were hurried along in tho wildesl confusion, and so many were killed by tin desperate peoplo in tho hills for tho saki of their flesh, that the transit could only bo carried on by the banded vigilance oi interested grain-growers, assisted by the trainbands or militia. The way was marked by the carcasses or skeletons of men and beasts; and the wotyes, dogs and foxes soon put an end to the guttering! 'of any wretch who lay down to recovei fro'.n or die of liis sickness in those dread-