Serious reports are coming in of the famine conditions in the southwest of this province. It is evident that by Chinese New Year the people of more than 20 districts will be facing starvation. This is the culmination of a prolonged period of drought, which has prevailed all over Shansi, but conditions are more severe in the southwestern counties, for the reason that the officials have for several seasons encouraged the growing of cotton on soil that formerly produced grain. There is im consequence no surplus of grain now to meet this abnormal condition.
This has been so far one of the dryest winters we have experienced in a good many years in Shansi. We have had but one very light fall of snow, and that was a week ago. All signs point toward a repetition of the conditions that led to the great famine of 1877-78 and to the less serious one of 1900-01. Already the prices of grain are much higher locally than they were during the famine in the winter of 1920-21.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.