Taianfu, Sept. 10.
The extremely hot weather of the last two months has left & record of sickness and death behind it which has riot been equalled in that 33% of the young chil the neighbourhood have died and that 90% of the adult population have been seriously ill during the summer.. The prevalent sickness has been bowel trouble in some form or other, due probably to the abnormal! temperature and scarcity of rain. The bean crops have suffered ye: much from the latter cause and the harvest generally is not up to the normal standard.
The unsettled state of the Government and the lack of rain continue to be excuses for lawlessness and disorder in the country districts. A few days ago a band of men attacked a village mission station belonging to the American Me-thadists, the Chinese in charge of the station and some of the converts were seized and were told they would be killed unless they offered prayer to the idols for rain and promised not to give information of the outrage. They escaped however, and brought the news to Taianfu. It is to be hoped that something will be done to punish the offenders, as the district is well known for its lawlessness and any indifference to outrages of this sort may well lead to a repetition of the offence in an aggravated form.
Opium seems to have been grown freely all over the Province and apparently nothing has been done by the authorities to carry out the law.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.