NEWS FROM CHINA.

Oamaru Mail, Volume III, Issue 657, 11 June 1878, Page 2

NEWS FROM CHINA.

Wellington, Juno 10. The China correspondents of the Press Agency at Shanghai write : Shanoh.ai, April 13. The famine in North China still continues the subject of the 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 20 years, is merely stating a simple fact. There is often a deal of exaggeration, if not imagination, in accounts of great disasters, but the records of suffering caused by the present famine reach us from the most trustworthy sources, the statements of the foreign missionaries, who have made it their duty to traverse tin: famine districts, bearing out the official reports of t'u-> natives. Notwithstanding all that lias been written about the prevalence of infanticide, there is no doubt the Chinese love their offspring as much as other people do theirs, but so fearful have been the sufferings that parents have in some instances slain and oaten iiieir own children. Li Hung Chang, Governor of Chihli, one of the famine-stricken provinces, has memorialised the Emperor, drawing afteuion to the heavy consumption of food stuff's entailed by the distillation of spirits, that industry being carried on to a large extent in his province. T ere ar</ there about "1000 distilleries, and ho instructs that the distillation tak's away between two and three millions of individuals' daily food. During pu:vi.>us famines distillation was I stopped, and Li Hung Chang recommends the adopt ion of the same course until the famine ceases.

A ease of murder, ihrough the effects of drink, has occurred here. The steamer Anchises, from Liverpool, arrived on the 20th March, and in the evening some of the men went ashore and got drunk. A fight took place afterwards on board. James Smith, the boatswain, quite au inoffensive man. interfered, when one of the sailors, named Charles Roberts, who was drunk, buried his sheath-knife to the hilt in his breast. Smith died immediately. Roberts is committed for trial. 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 intrndnc3 a steam cotton spinning mill into China. P has long been felt to be 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 has attended the establishment of similar manufactories in India, affords great encouragement to the promoters, the condition!: being, if anything, more favorable here than in India. Efforts will be made to secere 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 combined with the opening of co:;l aiid iron mines, will produce one of the most important changes in the foreign trade to China. Hong Koxg. April 21. The Peninsula and Oriental Company's steamer No-Zam met with an accident on the 4th April, which damaged one of her engines; when about 150 miles from Cape St. James. She was towed into Sargon 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 has been the means of causing a large number of persons of indifferent character to seek refuge in Hong Kong. Piracy is becoming more frequent. H.M. double-screw ironclad Audacious, the flagship of Vice-Admiral C. F. IJoilgar, C 8., left harbor on 3rd April, under sealed orders. She will be joined by the gunboats that arc up north. Their final destination is said, on good authority, to ho the anchorage outside Vladivostock 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 all being overhauled, and great excitement is caused amongst the Chinese. There has been a riot at Tein-Tsin amongst the famine-stricken people. One independent, account says the soldiers met the insurgents with " Wo have come to tell you that food is on the way, and will soon be here." On hearing this the rebels dispersed. I Northern Horan is in quite as distressing a condition as Shansi. The Governor has applied for 00,000 picul of grain from the Sung Clio granaries, 100,000 piettls from Kiangsu, besides a large sum of money. The distress is now scarcely a matter of degree ; houses have become sepulchres, dead bodies lie about the fields and on the roadside, and sights too horrible to mention are met with only a few hundred li from Tien-tsin.