HORRID SCENES IN CHINA.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 2, Issue 73, 22 February 1879, Page 3

HORRID SCENES IN CHINA.

Again Shantung has been heard from, and if the province ever needed help it would seem to be now. On April i we read " that famine increased daily ; no rain has fallen, and the ground is as dry as a bone. The distracted mothers, unablo to still the hopeless, unanswered cries of their children, expend their lost efforts to burying them alive to stop their moaning and end their miseries." Many villages present the same appearance as if a rebel horde had devasted them. As a Chinaman remarked, " Where only a short time ago one heard in passing the barking of dogs, and the singing of children at play, now all his hushed and still" —the dogs eaten and the people too weak to laugh and sing, or to do aught but pray for food or speedy death. Here is what one of the disturbors writes of the condition : "Up to the present time the people contented themselves with eating those who had died, but now they kill ttie living in order to have them for food. Husbands eat their wives, parents eat their sons, and daughters and children eat their parent?.' Women and girlß are sold at less than two dollars apiece, and human flesh is offered for sale in the markets. Writes another: " A mother, after having, with her husband, eaten her little boy, six years old. The little girl began to weep at the sight of the fatal knife, and the neighbours arrived just in time to save her." Note by Pere Aymer.

" Sometimes parents, so they may not be themselves horrible executioners of their children, agree with other parents—l will kill his child for him, and he shall kill mine."' It is the same story of all the provinces, and bodies of men combine to attack the smaller hamlets, not to rob them of treasure or seek revenge for wrongs iuilicted. Literally and truly they go about as wolves " seeking whom they may devour." It would be possible, were it requisite, to continue tho chapter of horrors existing in these five provinces almost indefinitely for only a half is told and that a half is weak and tame as compared to the actual facts, but the particulars of the latest reports are so revolting that it is inexpedient to further their publicity. The wildest imagination never pictured atrocities or suffering equal to tho scenes so common now throughout the famine region, and what the future has in store for them, who can say ? These are not reminiscences of the past, but faithful statesment of what is and what must be tho condition of China for months to come, for a brighter immediate future is not to be looked for. A full year must, elapse before the natural fruits of tho earth or government and private supplies with the best to management will be able to cope with tho requirements, and in the interval China will be decimated. To expect the foreign community to continue to any great extent their liberal contributions of the past is, in the face of the universal stagnation of trade, unreasonable, and for the future it must devolve on the benevolently disposed of all nations to alleviate, so far as may be, the sorrows and suffering of Cathay. To leave the victims to tho mercy or enterprise of 'their.rulers, is to leave them to perish, for the central Government its too utterly effete aud bankrupt, and is subordinate officials too given to peculation and self ■aggrandizement to give us hope that necessity may stimulate then) to efficient action. So far the aid from this source has been shamefully inadequate and intermittent, consisting vary largely in tho remission or postponement of taxes they would have found it impossible to col loci. Even tuoh material aid. M was extended wm unavailable through, lock of means to transport it, and I know ox' no sadder satire on the exclusive policy of China, than her Government stores of mouldering grain, starring millions scarce two hundred miles, away, and the ranting rail»*nd mnia-rnnd-hwl

IgrowitofttoWeotnirig railroadasa iwmtiincntagoiust her. lu ckxiiug I may statu that thtftotal foreign aid so far ont.our.tsto 1;i,01tf,«70 tads, of which .America has oontribiitud a -paltry iJWO taels. 1 have done, onH if my> story divert* a single dollar from the thousand channels of sporadic - charity | if I can convince people that just now a pound of rice is worth a ton of tracts, or that the prayer of gratitude from a poor wretch saved from death is sweeter than fulsome eulo?iivi from wealthy coporotions, then shall be what now I am not —Shanghai correspondent of the New York Herald.