Hongkong & Shanghai Bank.
The permanent headquarters of the Committee are atthe old German Club, No. 22 the Bund, and here gifts of food and clothing will he gratefully received by one of the officials.
Tue Coxpition oF Arrairs.
Bishop Graves has kindly _provided us with an extract from a letter written on September 25 by the Rev. P. M. Scott of Peking. In sending us this extract Bishop Graves so terrible as _the state of things is very few of us have definite information about! the exact situation in the North Tt is for that reason that I send these observations of an experienced observer who has been over one small portion of the ground.
The extract from Mr. letter is as follows:—
"I have recently travelled 200 miles touching 11 Asien, inspecting, famine conditions. I' estimated, with a lot of local help, an average of 20 per cent. or less of abnormal crop, coming on top of an almost: total failure of the spring crop. Our Hochien centre is almost as bad as any place our paper give records of. Our Chichow centre is not so terrific, but is very bad: and the people's resources are reduced by our previous floods. Much robbery is breaking out, not only among the tiff-raff. Many families are already in extremiis, some broken up, some migrating all together, not knowing ranch where they are going. We have had a rain just sufficient to put in the spring wheat in hope of later rain or snow. Many individual cases of abandonment of children or poison. ing of a whole family, ete. have already occurred. - Beasts are being killed right and left for want of feed, and quantities are being sold for one-third of their value, making next year's ploughing, etc. very difficult.
A Mosaic or Misery. only filled in our bit of a vast mosaic of misery extending from the Yellow River almost up to Peking and Tientsin, and from the Shansi hills across the Tientsin-Pukow Railway. The estimate of 20,000,000 being affected is, believe, quite justified. After last year's poor crops things are worse than they might have been, Our Mission staff is not so strong as in our flood campaign, but we are bending all our energies to touch what we can of the misery in our own spheres; every Mission will be up to the hilt in its own sphere and we shall not be able to get help from other Missions as we did in the flood time "Relief measures are still rather hazy, though we ourselves have got started on some minor but practical measures, village _indust of cotton spinning, straxtplaiting, ete, I don't know yet what other Missions have started.
"There is in Peking now an International Committee. on which American, British, and Roman Missions are all represented, and it is cooperating with Liang Shih-vis Hua Pei Chin Tsai Hsieh Bui (North China Famine Relief Joint Committee), and wants to work for still further coordination, of the various efforts afoot, Tien' reaching a similar stage of organ ization and will before long be in cooperation with Peking.
"No effort can be too great_and Ino means can be despised. First and foremost we want, gifts of grain conveyed up the railways: the Pukou and Hiankow lines are both ailable for one or other of our own districts. Next money. Then clothes."
Wirt a view to raising funds from some reliable sources for the famine relief work, the Peking Government is said to have requested the Diplomatic Corps to endorse its proposal of levying surtax of ten per cent. on both the Customs dues and the Salt Gabelle for a period of one year. The proceeds realized therefrom will be devoted exclusively to the famine relief work.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.