O.M.S., who labours in the Chuki district, comes a similar report with tha additional information that the conditions have driven some of the bolder spirits to brigandage and that some starving people have joined them as a last hope, since "it means death anyway." Distressing letters too have received from Miss Jones of Singchanghsien and the Rev. J. Shoemaker concerning the districts of Ilaio Po, O-kwun and Ts'ong Ko Bu. Of the people of the last named place we read that "Truly they are in a bad way. Many of them are living on acorns which they cook and eat as porridge. This is found to be very bitter and stringent to the taste." Lack of space forbids our quoting other equally poignant testimony to the same sad state of affairs in other parts.
In the attempts to alleviate the hard lot of these sufferers a local Chinese-Foreign Famine Relief Committee has been formed which, working in ce-operation with the Committee of the same name in Shanghai, is supervising conditions in the areas around Ningpo, Shaohsing and Taichow. The chairman is the Taoyin of Ningpo Mr. Wans Yee-tee; the ce-chairman (foreign): Mr. F. W. Carey (Commissioner of Customs) and the General Secretary, Mr. Y. C. Hu. Their plan of work hag been to organize subcommittees in the centre of every famine area. On every one of these, in order to emphasize the international character of the parent society, a foreigner (a resident if possible) is serving as vice-chairman. This plan promises to work very successfully. Thus, at Chuki, in the Shaohsing area the Rev. W Browne is the vice-chairman of the sub-committee; at Chiengsien, the Rev. Macpherson of the China Inland Mission; at Taichow, Father Van Oyen, and so on.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.