Peking, Aug. 3.
The most severe famine for many years is reaping a toll of thousands of lives in the Yuanchow district of Hunan, 450 miles southwest of Hankow, accessible only by junk. Starving people are joining robber bands and burning, slaying and pillaging. Mr. Hermann Becker, of the China Inland Mission, Yuan-chow, writes that 800 to 1,000 are dying daily in his immediate district. The mission each day gathers 20 or 30 dead bodies in the city streets and gives them decent burial. He has collected in a cam, 600 orphans whom he is feeding and clothing, but is unable to rescue more, owing to the lack of funds, The famine is increasing daily and more than 8,000 children are missing in the district. They are certain to die unless food is immediately forthcoming, Mr, Becker writes: "Now often We seo a woman lying dead in the street with her three children sitting beside her. We ought to take at least 1,000 children from the streets, but are lacking in funds, The famine is producing more robbers daily. We have in the district thousands of robbers, making travel unsafe. Many famine children are joining the robbers, I have seen many children, eight and 12 years old, with big knives across their backs. These young robbers are worse than the older. ones. They are always burning houses and killing people.
"Four hundred and ninety families are homeless because hundreds of these children have burned their houses, just outside the city wall. Of 600 children taken from the streets we shall have to send 400 to Amoy or they will die or become robbers. Considering the area, the famine is immeasurably worse than that in Russia. There is hope for a, 50 per cent. harvest, but unless rain falls we shall lose the harvest for next year. The harvest in September will not help the thousands of sufferers who cannot hold out. We shall have to continue relief work indefinitely. We are saving thou-much more."—Nanyang Colle, ands of lives, a ought to do Radio Service. a Ir is reported from Antung that in consequence of the recent continuous rain the Yalu River became considerably swollen, a rise of 93.5 ft. being recorded.' The flood is subsiding, since on July 20 the rain stopped, but during the freshet more than 80 rafts moored along the coast of Shahochen were washed away, not to mention losses sustained on the chained lumber by the rushing water. The value of the rafts washed away is esti-{mated roughly at Y.600,000.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.