INQUIRY INTO THE POPULATION OF OF UNA. 669 



though many luillions imist Imvo perished, it is not at all likely that 

 the numbers of 1850 (414,41);^,0()()) were more than decinuited. Even 

 then, to kill or starve 4;^,0()(),0()() people in ten years would mean 

 12,000 a day, in addition to the 40.000 a day who (at the rate of 80 

 per thousand i)er annum) would die naturally, and would balance 

 about the same number of births. Moreover, the rebellion covered 

 only one-half the area of China, so that 24,000 a day is certainly 

 nearer than 12,000." 



The loss of life attendin<>- the crushing of the two Mohammedan 

 and the Nien-fei rebellions ( ISiiO-lSTH) mounted certainly to over a 

 million. Then we have a (juarter of a million killed in the suppres- 

 sion of the Mohannuedan rebellion in Kan-su in 1894-05. If we 

 add to this terrible source of loss of population that resulting from 

 famines and floods, the total is nearly doubled. There were great 

 famines in 1810, 1811, lS4(i, and 1849, wdiich, according to the 

 Tung hua lu, the best official authority we have on the subject, re- 

 duced the population by 45,000,000. Although this figure may seem 

 excessive, Ave know that in the next great famine, that of 1877-78, 

 which visited only four provinces of the Empire w4th great severity, 

 no fcAver than 9,500,000 persons fell its victims. This figure I quote 

 on the authority of the China famine relief committee of Shanghai. 



We must add to this again the loss of life which attended the great 

 flood of 1888, when the Yellow Eiver broke its banks and flooded 

 nearh^ the whole province of Ho-nan. According to memorials sent 

 at the time to the Emperor, about 2,000,000 w-ere drowned or starved 

 to death by this catastrophe. Then there is the unknown, but cer- 

 tainly terrible, mortality during the great drought and famine in 

 Shan-hsi, Shen-hsi, Chih-li, and southern Mongolia in 1892-93 and 

 j894. There have also been numerous epidemics of cholera and 

 plague which have devastated sections of the Empire in the last 

 twenty to thirty years, and still we have not exhausted the list of 

 causes of violent fluctuations, of extraordinary loss to the population 

 of China during the nineteenth century.'' 



It nu^st not be lost sight of that these figures represent only the 

 mortality among adults; it is extremely improbable that infants were 

 counted at all. 



Popoff, in his study on the population in China,'^ estimates that the 



a E. H. Purker. ('hiiia. p. 100. 



6 I was told in llJOl by the late Li Hung Chang that over 30,000 Chinese lost 

 their lives in Peking alone during the Boxer troubles of 1900. Admitting that 

 this figure and all those here given are exaggerated, it is true beyond all doubt 

 that the loss to the population from these causes has been fearful. 



<• P. S. PoiKtfF in Xovoe Vrcniya, No. 3000, September 10, 1884. Conf. S. Wells 

 Williams, The Middle Kingdom, i, 270. 



