Some will not last as long as that. They are suffering now, and have come to the end of things. They have not a cash, no resources of any kind. They have not even been able to redeem from the pawnshops the things which the shortage of 1920-1921 forced them to pledge, and they have nothing to put in their place. It was freezing, and I saw people who at night had nothing to cover them but a little straw, or palm-fibre raincoats, Others are using sacks, old mosquito-curtains, and dreadful-looking rags. The wadded quilt hag long ago gone to the pawnshop. One man said to me, "It is impossible to sleep at night, it is so cold. But that doesn't matter so much—I'm hungry, I must have something to fill my. stomach!" But sleep is necessary after all, and this poor fellow has not been able to keep up long; he has fallen il), and can no longer even "fill his stomach," or those of the three others who compose his family. Moreover, the general misery will bring idlencss—and that. is fatal!
The first harvest of rice here having been excellent, the farmers, more avaricious then farseeing, exported far too much. One must say in their defence that the high authorities of the province were buying rice officially. The result is the same: there is no longer enough rice for local needs, and they' will be forced to import it. But it will be dearer: and, even if it were in abundance, the poor, who are in the huge majority, would still have to. suffer from hunger in sight of the rice that money alone could put into their pots. Money? There is none. And no money—no rice! The sweet potato—the "second rice" of the poor—suffered' also from the floods, or from the too abundant rains. The harvest has been, in general, diminished by half, when it has not been altogether swept away with the fields themselves.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.