Yang-hsin, 7th July.
Dean Mr. Metene. on will have heard of the benevolent work of a committee of native merchants in Tientsin who, b; appeals to their rich friends and by their own generosity have raised 80,000 taels for the relief of the famine stricken in the flooded region. Mr. Chin Ju-chi, who has been actively engaged for more than twelve months in distributing relief, writes that he has not enough money for earryin; out his charitable schemes in this hsien of Yang-hsin. Of four hundred villages which he and his friends have visited and found to be very pour, they will only be able to relieve about two hundred. They hope that the foreigners will help them to finish this good work. Tudeed, as you will see on reading enclosed letter, Mr. Chin expects to be helped by us to the extent of 3,000 taels. He must have heard from sume-one in Tientsin to this effect. As Yang-hsin is the district in which Mr. Chin expects us to help him in relief work, it would be as well for me to give a brief description of the poor localities. Last year's food water ebbed away so quickly from [the high grounds in this and the neighbouring hsiens that many of the farmers without permission.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.