Each inmate of the emergency hostel bilged to do his part toward famine relief. This included cooking and preparation of rice which would be distributed among the starving townsfolk, the, garrying of coal and supplies, sewing, making of straw matting and sandals, and helping in all the necessary ways with famine victims.
The fact that the missionaries: had enough funds to carry on thi work was due to the good offices of local sik merchants, one of whom had conditions brought home to him by Mr. Robinson. In company with this merchant, Mr. Robinson went the rounds of the town one cold winter night to point out the actual sufferings. On this round they came to a wretched hovel which was being used by country people, many of them formerly well off, but destitute through failure of their crops. A large fire burned in the centre and around it were hunched the sleeping figures of those in the Inst stages of starvation.
The dead lay about and received no attention whatever from the starving stoics who sat among them. In many cases it had been verified Ly Mr. Robinson that a not unfrequent occurrence was for a sleeping famine sufferer to topple over into the fire, become baked and provide a gruesome repast for those huddled in these wretched community shelters.
During the particular famine in question it had been verified a nom-ber of times that human beings were killed and eaten by -the starving jand though the penalty for this was severe it existed none the less. The fact, also, that many opium eaters were unable to obtain their daily ration of the drug accounted for numbers of deaths, indirectly due to the hard times of the famine.
Living through the foregoing conditions three times during eight years has made a rest almost a necessity for the hardy mission workers under whose guidance the orphanage already described exists. Despite a fair prospect that the resent winter will not be famine-stricken, the work is still being ear-tied on,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.