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Show MLLLIONS WANT BREAD. Recent advices from China indicate that conditions in the famine fam-ine district are as bad as have been rumored and are growing worse as days go by. Twp and a half million Chinese will die for the want of bread if assistance is not rendered immediately. This number comprises nearly the entire population of the northern part of the provinces of Kiang-Su and Anhui. The famine in China is the direct result of the great floods which inundated the provinces mentioned last summer, ruining the crops. Consequently there was no harvest and the supply of food on hand was not sufficient to sustain the people of these sections until the next harvest. In fact, unless prompt aid is rendered there will'not be a next harvest, as the Chinese will eat the seed instead of planting plant-ing it. During the first days of the famine mothers endeavored to sell their babies to provide food for themselvesand save the children chil-dren from starvation. Now they are trying to give the children away in the hope that those to whom the babies are given will bo able to feed them. Along the banks of the Grand canal the victims of this terrible calamity are living in mud and water, with only shacks of matting over their heads, hoping against hope that they may exist until boats bearing the staff of life come up tho canal to relieve them. Writing from Hwai Yuan, via Nanking, E. C. Lobenstino, of the American Presbyterian mission, describing tho conditions which exist in the country immediately about Hwai Yuan, says: ."The magistry of Hwai Yuan has an estimated population of 300,000 -persons. The number of famine sufferers those who must , be relieved or die in this magistry alone, amounts to, approximate- ( ly, 200,00070 per cent of the entire population. Last year the flood was the worst hero in many years, and the crops were poor. j The wheat suffered from drouth and only one-third was saved. This year about half of the wheat was harvested, but in the region north of Hwai two tornadoes and then the flood carried away practically everything. "The need here is great, and the condition of the poor is as serious seri-ous as that in other parts. Reports come in daily of people dying of starvation. The poor who have children are trying to sell them, but even they will not sell for a pittance. Help is needed, at once. As soon as the real cold and wet weather sets in the death rate will increase in-crease greatly. z. "One million people are dependent on outside relief, and these will die of starvation if relief is not given and they are kept in this region. Five months must be counted on, and a family cannot exist on less than one cent per head per day, if for that. "We are eagerly hoping for help from the Red Cross society.". . This statement only gives an idea of the conditions in one portion por-tion of the great famine district. |