Some time agai rebored floods throughout much of the lower part of the Canton province and the destruction of much of the rice crops. One district, named Gaining, suffered very badly. At the time the local official reported to the Viceroy the wretched condition of the people. The Viceroy himeelf sent out a representative to examine and report. The report of this man is now published and stands before me. It reveals a terrible condition of affairs. More than nineteen hundred houses, great and small, have been washed away, or rendered ules Aes forty the rice folds have been. madevueles us lost their lives. areas
by the sand which the floods washed over them. The Viceroy, therefore, issued orders that the houses of the inhabitants are to be replaced, and the sand removed from the fields #0 that at the forthcoming spring the farmers may be able to replant paddy. Of course, these calamities frequently ocoar in the country districts, and noone in the big cities, as a rule, knows anything about them. The ne hower now bring these things to light. I tad that the people are exposed to such periodical calaroities, for though they may save their lives, they are thereby planged into dire poverty, from which generation is not space enough te release them.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.