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Show WHERE MISERY IS UNLIMITED. Famine in its 1no.1t appalling form is holding the largest piuunces of China in its grip anrl yesterday Trcsi dent Wilson appealed to the American people to help save ihc afflicted One of the correspondents fi miliar with the distress plates the number oC H possible deaths al 20,0( and re- ports 50,000.000 people Involved in the horrors of starvation. Crops have failed and there is not li ing to eat in districts where there are nearly as many men, women and chil-dren chil-dren as inhabit the United States. The calamity is almost wlthot a parallel. Describing conditions a missionary H in i I'n:;. 11 BSys: "I found the roads literally lined with H corpses. Diseases arc coming in to complete the work of the famine, and cholera especially is epidemic in large numbers of communities I found nne village where twent three persons had died the day before from it Lmp ty stomachs leave the people easy vic-H vic-H times of the disease." Our forest service has been telling H the people of the west that the trees H in the mountains are essential to crop H production as they prevent the earh run off of the winter precipitation. This lesson Is being driven home with fl tremendous force in those provinces of 1 hina where drouth prevails Back in the mountain ranges where the rivers rise, the timber has been cut off and the soil eroded until there is nothing to retain the moisture wh-n the snows of winter begin to melt So China uffers two extremes. One of 1 flood and the other of drouth. A cablegram from R I). Henkle, who LHHIH is in Teking gives this distressing I summary. "A month ago, and even three weeks ago it was estimated thai between 30, 000,000 and 40,000.000 persons would be affected, and that probably 10,000,-000 10,000,-000 would die. Report f surveys which have Just reached into Isolated districts and a new census show thai at least 50,000.000 are directly involved, in-volved, and that at least 20t0i)n,tifi(i persons per-sons will die this winter unless help of unprecedented quantities reaches the stricken area. The people are dying bv the thousands and we are Just in the beginning of the winter Matters will grow worse as the winter progresses. Girls irom 14 to 20 have been selling for $2 each for shipment to south Chi-na. Chi-na. In this winter," explained Mr. Henkle, Hen-kle, "the Chinese peasants wear heav 11 padded clothes to protect them from the told. They sold these clothes some time ago. and now they have BO picparalion for the elements Deaths; H by neezing are distressingly common The people are living in hole dug into1 the ground and under little brush shel ' H tera about the size of rm 'pup' . There is a big outstanding interro-Ration interro-Ration Is there no way of reach in? H 1 he Chinese who ;ire paying $2 eat h H for girls? Having money to give for H blood, those Chinese of wealth should he within the grasp of the government I A national disaster of the proportions H of the calamity now upon the heart of H asta should call for heron measure! H one of which should be the confiscate H lng of the dollars of every Chinaman who taking advantage of the mlsfor H tunes of his country, becomes a slave owner and a maker of concubines. H China as a whole should be made H to bear this burden of relief. The fu-H fu-H lure should be mortgaged. ;nd this H could be made possible by the powers B agreeing to an increased bonded deb hated on customs dues. |