The mild winter has ushered in an early spring. There has been no snow to speak of in Hunan this Winter, and the drought of the sur) mer extended into the autumn and winter. "The writer has not seen in his 33 years in Hunan such a Jong extended drought, The ponds ud irrigation ditches have been empty up to a few weeks. ago. There has been a great scarcity of water in game country districts, All the ponds have been deepened and the earth carried out on to the rice fields for two purposes, to deepen the ponds they will hold more water and fertilize the fields. All through the country the bottom of the ponds as well as the sides have been planted with vegetables.
The spring rains have started and the farmers have sufficient water to cultivate the rice elds, but many a countryman shakes his head and says this is going to be a bad year. Others have also prophesied floods. Mean= while the price of rice has taken a slump of more than a dollar per load, This is good news to the many poor people.
There has never been a time when many beggars from the country have been seen on the streets of our cities, This is on the increase, Some country places have no tice fand there is still several months to harvest. At Isuho a rice riot on a small scale took place a few days ago. The report said 1,000, Deggars came to the village, which has been a large rice mart, to box and when some were refused, the whole crowd rushed the rice shops and took what they could get. The Siangtan Mayor sent soldiers to the spot and a settlement has been made. The people ask significantly, what is to keep hungry people from doing this again and again and while there 4s plenty of rice coming in, too many people have not the where-withal buy.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.