China’s Famine Victims

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Mar 14, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 11.

China’s Famine Victims

An eye-witness of the sufferings of famine victims in China tells pathetically of children's being sold to buy food. "A Chinese boy of five years will bring the equivalent of $1.50 in American money, or sufficient to feed a man till another crop comes." Little girls sell for twenty-five cents apiece. An official estimate, which is generally believed to be much too low, places the number of deaths from the bubonic plague epidemic at 66,000. One village has been completely depopulated, and the bodies of victims lay half buried in the snow.

"One of the earliest effects of the proposed new postal tax on periodical literature would be a lowering of the wages of the men and women who write for a living," reads an editorial in the San Francisco Examiner. "Magazine managers, in their enforced efforts to decrease the cost of their product, would find their line of least resistance in their account with the writers. The cost of paper and other materials is inelastic. Printers would suffer in the long run, but they can put up a stout resistance through their unions. There is," the writer concludes, "no trust or trades-union in the supply of literature; and the writers would go to the wall."

A bill has passed the Senate to establish a children's bureau under the department of commerce and labor. The chief of the bureau is directed to "investigate and report on all matters pertaining to the welfare of the children and child life, and especially investigate the questions of infantile mortality, birth-rate, physical degeneracy, orphanage, juvenile courts, desertion, dangerous occupations, accidents and diseases of children," etc. More and more are we trending toward centralized and parent government. It is not a healthy sign.

Decisions handed down by the Interstate Commerce Commission prohibit the advance of first-class railroad rates, and a reduction is ordered in second-class rates. It was shown that the railroads are prosperous, and that there is no justification for a rate increase. "The railroads must either obey the law as laid down by the Interstate Commerce Commission, or they must pass into the hands of the United States Government," is the unalterable alternative made by the commission.

The Presbyterian Ministers' Association of New York and vicinity protest "as citizens and patriots against the proposed presentation of a silver service to be placed on the United States battle-ship Utah as the gift of the State of Utah. This service," says the resolution of protest, "bearing the portrait of Brigham Young and a picture of the Mormon Temple at Salt Lake City, will discredit the State making the gift, and be a disgrace to the nation, if it is accepted."

The discovery that skin taken from the human body may be kept in a healthy condition for an indefinite length of time, is of inestimable value to science in the grafting of skin. Thus kept it may be used to replace skin that has been burned or otherwise destroyed, and answer the purpose as well as skin cut fresh from the flesh.

Schwabacher Brothers and the John Vitucci Company, two of the largest wholesale grocery firms of Seattle, Washington, have been accused of violating the national pure food law by sending out cottonseed oil labeled as olive oil. But refined cottonseed oil is said to be just as good and cleaner.

Eight Indians and one member of the State police force were killed in a battle near Tuscarora, Nevada, when the Indians, charged with the murder of four stockmen, were traced and found. In this revival of pioneer scenes, the red men made their last stand with bows and arrows.

Progress of the Culebra cut on the Panama Canal is greatly retarded as the result of a landslide which carried half a million cubic yards of earth into that cut. On account of numerous landslides, plans for the Culebra section may have to be changed.

A cigaret thrown near a can of gasoline caused an explosion and fire at Watsonville, California, that injured two men and destroyed a factory, the loss amounting to $10,000. This is one of the smallest of cigaret losses.

An explosion which set fire to a vessel containing 16,000 cases of oil, resulted in the death of thirty-nine men out of a crew of forty-two. The boat sailed from Paiphong for Touraine in January.

Resolutions have been passed by California Socialists condemning a bill in the State legislature, the alleged object of which is the introduction of compulsory military training in the public schools.

A proposed State law of Nevada governing capital punishment gives convicted murderers the choice of being hanged, shot, or taking poison.

The cost of taking the recent United States census is $14,500,000. The field work in 1910 was 13½ per cent higher than in 1900.

A fire believed to be of incendiary origin has left the city of Aux Cayes, Hayti, in ruins, and 25,000 people homeless.