$200,000,000 Needed Peking, Sept. 11.
According to American _missionaries at Tsinanfu, Paotingfu and Shuntehfu, the famine area extends southwards from Paoting-fu 2,000 li and from the Shansi borders to a width of 200 to 1,000 4i, in this area the crops average not more than 8 per cent. of the normal. Between thirty and forty millions of people are affected.
In many villages the heads of families are poisoning their wives and children with arsenic so as to avert certain death by starvation.
A conservative estimate places the sum required for relief at $200,- 060,000.—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.