Buds beginning to burst on the mulberry trees indicate that the: time for silk culture is near. How the country people can live until cocoons are ready to sell is the prob-Tem. It is almost impossible to borrow money on any kind of security. Excellent rice elds form worth $80 per mow, have Buyers at $20 per mow.' Pawnshops are so overloaded with clothes and furniture that they have to refuse any more and some have closed their doors. Efforts by officials aad gentry buy "South Sea" rice at low rates for distribution to certified farmers is one hopeful feature in a very distressing situation, The frst to perish are female infants. At Shihmenwan, mothers leave them at an orphanage where they as many as four on one bed until they die or can be sent to Hangchow or elsewhere. The next are the old women with small, bound feet who could not walk far enough beg for food. Pitiful are the mothers with children old enough to walk who have tramped their way cities and towns and become too weak or emaciated to travel further. Soup kitchens save some.
Estimates as to actual sufferers differ so widely that even a long lime resident hesitates to fix the figures. So far as can be seen, more have sickened and died than' those actually starved. This section has not had a real famine for over half a century, so is not prepared meeting or enduring starvation, 'A local citizen, who has spent time, "There are too many people; even in good years not enough rice is produced to feed them, so in bad years the population is reduced." Among the upper class of Chinese are many sympathetic, generous and actively helpful, a few are cold, callous and cynical. 'The most optimistic say that it will' take three good years to restore this region to normality. Like pessimists everywhere "yesterday was bad, to-day is worse, but to-morrow the worst is yet to come." We walt to see.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.