To the Honorable, the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled The undersigned, citizens of New Haven, respectfully ask the attention of Congress to the present distress in the northern provinces of China, caused by the failure of the usual rains during the past summer, The region over which the dearth exists, comprises parts of the four large provinces of Chihli, Shansi, Honan and Shensi, continuous to the Yellow River, and measuring altogether not less than a hundred thousand square miles. The province of Shansi, west of Peking, is an upland region, the mount-alns bare of trees, no means of irrigation, rident on the rainfall for its annual A now this is the third season in which little or no rain has fallen in its southern districts. The harrowing details of the extremities to which the famishing inhabitants were reduced two months ago have been reported by eye-witnesses, Protestant and Catholic missionaries, so that be no doubt that it is one of the modern times.
The Governor of Shansi reports, in his appeal to Peking for aid, that between three and four millions of people are dependent on official support. in the southern part of that province there remain neither bark of trees nor wild herbs to be eaten; and ordinary food-stulls, grain and meats, have quite disappeared.
some places the people have been eating earth to prolong life, while husbands were selling their wives, and parents their child-en, to preserve, if possible, all from death. As may readily' inferred, all who were able had left their homes to seek a precarious subsistence in other provinces, and the roads were thronged with hosts of beggars.
In the midst of this sudden and tremendous woe, the Imperial Government has been more than usually alert in doing what it can to relieve its subjects, nor has uvate philanthropy among the people en idle; but the urgent demands for help far overpass their means to relieve them. The population of the entire region suffering from want of the usual harvest last year, is estimated at not less than 75 millions; and of this vast number of our fellow men there can hardly be less than ten millions now in a condition of utter destitution. It is inevitable, therefore, {that before the winter is over, and the crops can be in next May and 1 June, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of the sufferers must inevitably 3 perish.
ish. No human agency can reach all of Hthem; and no rhetoric can add strength endured, or the dreadful means taken allay them.
In view of this unexpected visitation, your Memorialists respectfully represent to your Honorable Body their belief that the present cal fr help is one which com mends itself as a national affair. In the recent famine in India, the means, skill, and power of the British Government were taxed to. the utmost to save life, while private benevolence was not lacking to supplement public aid. But the Chinese Government cannot command the means, the skill, or the power, to meet this call of its distressed subjects, and it is chiefly the necessities and distresses of a common humanity which give force to this appeal for aid. " A little has been done by private charity, and between $2,000 and $3,000 have been sent to Shanghai. It. is not necessary to send out food, for there is enough in China itself to relieve the fami ug; the funds are needed tu yot it to than They can be transmitted by telegraph so a8 to be immediately available.
Your Momorialists also fool that they can here properly refer to the memorial on this matter presented by the citizens of New York, in which reference was made to the deposit of money now in charge of the Honorable the Secretary of State, commonly known as the surplus of the Chinese Indemnity Fund. It is well known that after all just claims had been paid from the money received from the Chinese Government for the losses sustained by American citizens in China, up to November, 1857, there remained a surplus in 1867 of about $240,000, This was received that year in this country, and has since been continually increasing by the accrued interest.
In view of the action taken by Congress from time to time as to the final disposal of this surplus, your Memorialists beg leave to refer only to the Report of the Senate Committee on Foreign eerie dated June 24th, 1870, (No. 230) present by Mr. Sumner. In' this document, the quisition and history of the Fund are clearly stated, and the remark made at the end in respect to its ownership, that "Whatever may be our technical title to it, in conscience the money is not ours." The subsequent refusal of the House of Representatives to appropriate it to national uses, and the hesitancy of Congress to return it tu the Chinese Government, lead your Memorialists to infer that Mr. Sum-her's conclusion is the view still taken of its ownership by Congress. They can add nothing to the justness and cogency of his statements.
"They therefore indulge the hope that your Honorable Body will not turn a deaf ear to the cry of starving multitudes now in the extremity of their suffering, but will give back the money to which the American Government cannot bring an undisputed claim, The delay ist disposing of it has been a means of keeping it toa time like the present, when its distribution willrel the misery and prolong the lives of myriads, and its reception convince the Chinese rulers and people of our sympathy with their misfortunes. - Their own. proverb, "All under the Heavens are brethren," will thereby receive an unexpected and cheering application, and help them the better to understand the brotherhood of nations. The force of the clause in the 29th article of the present Treaty between our two nations, that the Christian religion teaches men to do to others as would that others should do to them, also have, for the Chinese, a new and life giving application.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.