NEWS FROM CHINA.

Temuka Leader, Volume I, Issue 85, 9 October 1878, Page 3

NEWS FROM CHINA.

(Special to the Press Agency.) Shanghai, August 3. The famine in the north of China is happily decreasing. The prospects of the autumn harvest are encouraging, and the local committee have decided that the efforts to collect subscriptions abroad may now be relaxed. The total amount collected by foreigners for the famine fund was nearly L 40,000 sterling. The famine has certainly been one of the most fearful visitations of its kiad, and the attendant horrors have been truly shocking. That women and children should at such a time in China be sold to slavery and prostitution was to be expected. But, though the native authorities have often denied it, there is no doubt that murder and cannibalism has been common in some of the districts. Human flesh has been openly sold for food. These facts are vouched for by foreign missionaries, who undertook the distribution of relief, and many of whom have fallen victims to fever and other diseases caught in the discharge of their self-imposed task. The Provincial Government of Kwantung have sanctioned the appropriation of 10,000 dollars towards the relief of distressed districts in that province. > The native Christians at Kien Ning Fua and Yen Pingfu Fohkien have been subjected to much violence and illtreatment. At the former city a chapel belonging to the Church Missionary Society has been destroyed. On the 25th July a remarkab’e and fatal occurrence took place on board the steamer Elgin while at Sargoa. One of the men fell into the tank hold, and in endeavoring to rescue him three more of the crew lost their lives, and two others were injured. The men were, it appears, . suffocated by the foul air generated in the hold by damp cargo and want of ventilation. c,-

The present summer in Shanghai is one of the hottest for several years past, the thermometer registe ring 95.0 Fahrenheit in the shade. Tiier* ■ have been several cases of sudden death in consequence, but, on the whole, the season is healthy, a fact commonly remarked in hot summers.

The “ Coming Man” in China is said to be the Viceroy Tso, the general whofl after a long and determined war, has succeeded in recapturing for China the lost province of Kasghar. The way in which Tso conducted that campaign has shown him to possess some of the highest qualities of soldiership. He has been compared to some of the famous Roman generals. The result also proved the Chinese soldiers to be composed of very different stuff to their predecessors of nearly thirty years ago. They are better armed, and fight well. Tso is said to have very anti-foreign leanings, but this is by no means certain.