Terrible Conditions In Ckina Eight and One Half Million Starring People What Is Tour Church Doing About It? By REV. REUBEN TORRET. Jr.
drifted back to beg around their homes. Consequently every place is overrun with mendicants who belong to the lo cality and those who have come from other parts. The families are broken up. Part go one way and part another unless the members are so few as to make it prac tical to try to keep together. As far as possible the household effects are converted into money, a few articles are carried on the ends of a pole and an effort made to get as far as possible. Many of the cases that have been reported of selling and drowning children have been families who have fled from Shantung and whose money has become exhausted, as in two instances brought to the attention of the writer. A family consisting of four from a well known town plodded North until the mother’s strength failed. The money was exhausted and there must be food to go on. The oldest child was sold for ten dollars. However, the mother’s strength lagged again-and she could carry the baby no farther. The father was already carrying too heavy a load and could not add the child’s weight to it so the little life was ended in a nearby well while the parents struggled on. In the second case the exhausted woman dropped by the roadside to rest, telling her husband to go on and she would overtake him. The girl about ten years old was sold for twenty dol lars. When the mother failed to ap pear he left his luggage and went back -to find her body hanging from a tree. He looked at the infant left him to care for and realizing his powerlessness to
HE terrible famine conditions in China are described in a graphic letter from Rev. Reu ben Torrey, son of Dr. R. A. Torrey. We can only quote a small portion of his letter, but this we' trust will be sufficient
to arouse many to the desperate needs and the responsibilities upon Christians everywhere, to give what they can to relieve the situation and to pray much for the missionaries. Mr. Torrey says: “X have just been in Peking for five days representing the Relief Societies of Shantung. We had a most interest ing time, but as far as securing help for the eight and one-half million suf ferers of our province was concerned, X am going back much disappointed. We are faced by an overwhelming task to merely save life.and there seems little hope of securing funds- that will be sufficient to even warrant starting re lief measures on any considerable scale. I am now going back to bring more pressure to bear on the local re lief organization and see what can be done. We just cannot sit idly by and see these millions starving to death.” - In every hamlet it was found that large numbers of the able bodied had left. Many had bricked up their doors and headed for Manchuria. Others had sought employment in less remote places. Many were adrift begging. Where homes were not deserted it was found that few were left but the women and children, together with the aged and weak. Tragedy follows the refugees. They go from sorrow to dis tress, from distress to despair. Large numbers of them finding conditions as bad or worse than those left have
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