We are hoping that the launches will soon start and so will give us mail more quickly; it has been very irregular for some time. The famine relief "drive" has been on for some time and already $400 has been remitted to Peking, but that is miserable sum for so wealthy a city. The excuses that most of the officials made was that they had been forced to contribute severe! times and in some cases a month's salary had been taken for said famine. None of them doubts but that most of that went another way than to the famine sufferers.. Most of the money was in small contributions, which the poor contributed gladly.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.