INTELLIGENCE FROM CHINA.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1349, 11 June 1878, Page 3

INTELLIGENCE FROM CHINA.

[By Telegraph.] [PEB PEESB AGENCY.] Wellington, June 10. The China correspondent of the Press Agency, writes from Shanghai on April I3th, as follows : The North China famine still continues the subject of deepest interest. A China famine is no new thing, but the present is almost without parallel. The writer, who describes it in the London “Spectator,” as perhaps the most widespread and fearful scourge that has befallen humanity for the last twenty years, is merely stating a simple fact. There is often a deal of exaggeration, of hot imagination, in the accounts of great disasters, but the records of suffering caused by the present famine reach us from the most trustworthy sources. The statements of tlie foreign missionaries who have made it their duly to traverse the famine districts bear out the official reports of the Natives. Notwithstanding all that has been written about the prevalence of infanticide, there is no doubt the Chinese love their off spring as much as oilier people do theirs, but so fearful have been the sufferings that parents have in some instances slain and eaten their own children. Li Rung Chang, Rover-

nor of Chihli, one of the famine stricken provinces, has memorialised the Emperor, drawing attention to the heavy consumption of food-stuffs entailed by the distillation of spirits, that industry being carried on to a large extent in his province. There are there about one thousand distilleries, and he estimates that distillation takes away between two and three millions of individuals’ daily food. During previous famines distillation was stopped, and Li Hung Chang recommends the adoption of the same course now until tne famine ceases.

Her Britannic Majesty’s Consular service has suffered a severe loss in the death of W. E. Meyers, late Chinese Secretary to the British Legation at Pekin. Mr Meyers was on his way home on sick leave, but died at Shanghai a few hours after landing. He was an excellent Chinese scholar, author of several useful works connected with the study of Chinese, and an indefatigable worker. A ease of murder through the effects of drink occurred here. The steamer Anchises from Liverpool arrived on 29th March. In the evening some of the men went ashore, got drunk, and a fight took place afterwards on board. James Smith, boatswain, a quite inoffensive man, interfered, when one of the sailors, Charles Roberts, who was drunk, buried his sheath knife to the hilt in his breast. Smith died immediately. Roberts was committed for trial. A case which will excite considerable interest in America and elsewhere has been advanced another stage. Meyers, the United States Consul-General at this port, was suspended from office by Minister Seward at Pekin. Moyers has made serious charges against Yice-Oonsul Bradford, and accused the Minister of the United States to Congress. It is understood Seward has resigned, and will proceed to Washington to meet the charges preferred against him. Bradford will be arraigned here on an indictment for offences of a grave nature connected with the discharge of his official duties. The proposed mining for coal and iron in the north will be proceeded with at once, engineers and machinery having just arrived from Europe. An attempt will bo shortly made to introduce a steam cotton spinning mill into China. It has long been felt an anomaly that China should export cotton to receive it back manufactured when cheap and good labor can be had here in abundance. The success which attended the establishment of similar manufactories in India affords great encouragement to the promoters, the conditions being, if anything more favorable here than in India. Efforts will bo made to secure the co-operation of the official or influential Chinese in the undertaking. If the attempt prove successful, and if rightly managed there is little doubt it will be, the result s combined with the opening of coal and iron mines will produce one of the most important changes in the foreign trade to China. Arrived —Pacific, sloop, Ist April, from Hokinnga. COMMERCIAL. Black tea—No business to report; green tea, business has continued at previous low scale of prices, and market now nearly cleared. Only about 200 half-chests of all descriptions are left on offer. Silk —A strong reaction has set in, and a large daily business is done at hardening rates. Closing quotations show an advance of £5 to £6 per 1331b5. Hongkong, April 24. Business continues very quiet. Freights still remain very low. The Peninsular and Oriental steamer Nizam met with an accident on 4th Apx-il, which damaged one of her engines, when about 150 miles from Cape St. James. She was towed into Saigon by another steamer, and the mails were brought on by the British steamer State of Alabama. According to the report of the ActingSuperintendent of Police for the year 1877, the distress caused by the famine and floods on the mainland had been the means of a large number of persons of indifferent character seeking refuge in Hongkong. Piracy is becoming more frequent. It has been suggested here that, for police purposes, the telephone should be made to supersede the telegraph. H.M. double-screw ironclad Audacious, the flagship of Vice-Admiral C. F. Hillyar, C. 8., left harbor on 3rd April under sealed orders. She will be joined by the gunboats that are up north. Their final destination is said, upon good authority, to be the anchorage outside Vladerostock harbor. In consequence of the warlike character of the telegrams recently received, preliminary steps have been taken by the naval and military authorities to make provision for the defence of this colony. Guns and ammunition are being overhauled, and great excitement is caused amongst the Chinese. The Sarah Nicholson, which arrived hero on 14th inst., reports that on 22nd March in lat. 4 S., long. 164 E., she passed through at least sixty miles of pumice stone floating upon the water. In many places it was so thick that the water could not bo seen at all for some distance. Those on board picked up pieces as large as two feet square, but the greater portion was in a powdered state. On the afternoon of April 11th one of the most sudden and alarming disasters overtook Canton, which resulted in a terrible destruction of life and properly. In the morning there was loud thunder and vivid lightning. At two in the afternoon it commenced to rain. At four came a fierce whirlwind, carrying along two huge waterspouts, while torrents of rain and hail fell on the river opposite Shanier (the Europeans’ residence), overturning and smashing to atoms hundreds of boats and sampans, and tearing up numerous large trees. The wind whisked off the roofs of most of the foreign houses upon Shanier, quite demolishing a number of smaller edifices, and tearing a channel through the suburb several hundred feet in width. The storm l isted only ten minutes, but when it passed the rirer opposite;Shanier presented a pitiable spectacle of wreckage of all sorts, with dead bodi s st- ewnin all directions. Most of the bouses were unroofed, and trees torn down or stripped of their branches, half of the houses on the Shanier are rendered unhabitable, and nearly all are more or less damaged. To make matters worse fires began to spring up in various parts of the suburbs. Crowds of incendiaries and looters swarmed in every direction, i n i Sh mierwas speedily covered with a t housand cm ions spectators, but they did not attempt to make raids on the wrecked foreign hou-is The British Consul, Dr. llanee, obtained from the Viceroy a body of troops to guard the settlement during the night, during which fires were burning in largo tracts of the native town. The destruction of life in some parts was shocking. From one ruin the bodies of ten Chinamen were dug out. The mortality lias been variously estimated at from five to ten thousand, but the latter is considered to be nearer the mark. Nine thousand houses are shown to have been been destroyed. Warned by the noise of the storm and the crash of falling houses many escaped in time, but others, who did not take flight in time and remained in the eating houses and opium shops, were killed in great numbers by the falling ruins. Over a thousand lives were lost on the water. Seven thousand coffins have been given out by the Chinese Hospital for interment of the bodies dug from the debris and recovered from the wreckage of the boats on the river. The Governor General’s circular notifies that the loss of buildings through the tornado and fire was over fourteen hundred.

There has been a rising at Tientsin amongst the famine stricken people. One independent account says the soldiers met the insurgents with “We have come to tell you that food is on the way and will soon be here.” On hearing this the rebels dispersed. Northern Honan is in quite as distressing a condition as Shansi. The Governor has applied for 90,000 piculs grain from "the Lung Cho granaries, a 100,000 piculs from Kiangsu, besides a large sum of money. The dist ress ig now scarcely a matter of degree. Houses have become sepulchres. Head bodies lie about the holds and roadsides, and sights too horrible to mention are met with only a short distance from Tienfsen.

One of the improvements at Take is the laying a telegraph line between there, Taiwaiu Foo and Ai ping. The Chinese have not once interfered with the wire, although they murmured somewhat when it was being laid through their fields. The wire is largely used by Chinese and Europeans,