Stricken China

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Apr 4, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 14.

FAMINE and plague news from China are not reassuring. One of the great difficulties regarding the relief in the famine districts is in reaching the sufferers. China is not a checkerwork of railways as is America or England. Three or four days are not sufficient to reach particular districts, as such a period would be in this country. It was long before actual conditions were known; it will be longer still before adequate help can reach the interior districts, and hundreds of thousands will probably die who will never be reached. In Sha Yang, in the province of Hupeh, for instance, when relief reached the wretched, hunger-mad people, twenty-one were trampled to death as the starving ones fought for food. These are sad conditions in a world of plenty.

The plague in Manchuria is not the "bubonic" type, but the "pneumonic," the germs of which are carried on the breath, and which in nearly all cases proves fatal. It is said by some writers that there will be plenty of vacant territory within the bounds of the Chinese Empire. If the plague continues, it will render practically desolate whole provinces.

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