We are surprised that so little news has appeared in the papers about -the terrible earthquake in Kansu on December 16. It has been the worst of its kind. Towns and villages entirely destroyed; telegraph communication cut off; half of the hills seemed to have flowed down like water, submerge ing everything, houses, telegraph poles, roads, ete., for two to three li in places, heaping the earth up in the valleys till they became hills. The little town of _Tsing-kiang-i on the main road, Sian to Lanchow, is completely destroyed, some 50 people being killed, many injured and many animals killed. It is the sixth stage from Lanchow and one day from Tsingnaychow. This latter place also suffered terribly. More than 1,000 people have been buried and many injured.
The Magistrate there, a very energetic, go-ahead man, was a real boon to the people. I give this extract from a letter received from one who visited the city to help the wounded people: ''One is filled with admiration for the Magistrate here. When the earthquake came on he quickly ordered men to rush out and call the people from their houses. Then he returned to his room and knelt down and prayed to Shang-ti (God) to kill him if it pleased Him but to spare the people. The walls of the house fell about him, even striking him, but he prayed on. Finally someone called him urgently from without. Thinking his help was wanted, he clambered out of the window, as the door was jambed. On finding, however, that he was called out to save his own life he knelt once again in the yard and continued to cry to God to kill him but spare the people. When the earthquake was owr he went out and set the people to work at once to rescue the li who were prisoners Next day when the people wanted shelter he sent out every.one of the 70 odd tents in the yamen, he himself sleeping en the ground with next to no cover overhead. He has since given out a month's grain to those without food, from the granaries which he had built against the time of famine. He clothed the poor from the pawn shops; ko has ordered
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.