Much has been heard of the destruction done by the typhoons in Chekiang last summer, but no one should miss reading the following letter. The tale it has to tell can only be paralleled by that of the Kansu earthquake. 2
Yenchowfu, Che.
I have recently returned from an extended journey in the Shuenan hsien. This hsien is one of the counties of the old styled prefecture of Yenchowfu. The country town is situated on the Hueichow river some 40 miles due west of Yenchow. It is a well placed city nestling amongst the hills and stands in a fertile valley famous for its tea plantations and verdant with a great variety of trees among which the tallow, varnish and camphor. are prominent for their commercial value.
As is wel] known, in the summer and autumn months of last year, the province of Chekiang quivered with tempes and destroying storms. For some time past it has been my pleasure to help forward relief measures made necessary through the evil arrows of famine. To the north of the Hueichow river there is scarcely a village but what has been hard hit, and in a great measure the staff of bread has been broken. On every hand the field is wasted and the land mourns.
Shuenan country comprises nearly 3,000 villages with a population of about a quarter of a million. It is the largest and most thickly populated county in the Yenchow area.
least a third of the territory has been affected by the extraordinary vagaries of the elements. There is no record of any previous Stormy season making havoc of crops and land on such a gigantic scale. The present attempt at relief is to help only those who have been brought to an extremity. Inspectors were sent out and on their reports a further mission of inquiry was instituted. Out of some 900 villages who applied for help wel are focussing our efforts on less than 500 where we believe the strass!
Mr. Uang, the presiding magistrate, has ce-operated wholeheartedly in this work of relief.
I have} been through the devastated region and inspected the 10 distributing! centres where the grain distribution was found to be carried out with commendable efficiency. On one visit of inspection, of five days' _duration, the mandarin accompanied me in person. Proclamations are posted in every village, with the amount of relief, for that particular place, clearly set forth. It would be strange, in a country like China, if there was not some of the head men in some of the! villages—hundreds in number—where relief is sorely needed. Besides actually visiting the homes of the people who are in a sore plight it has been our plan to assemble the villages in the ancestral temple and call the roll. As each person filed passed they held the relief ticket in their hand for inspection. In this way we have been able to check up in a remarkable degree any irregularity and, in not a few instances, the village elder has lost "face" before his own people for semic slackness in carrying out some obligation devolving upon him. It has been rather encouraging to hear a common remark on the streets,—'Well the grain is getting to the right people this time."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.