100 



CHINA. 



British America for 233,600 taels collectively. 

 The apparently large share of Hong-Kong must 

 also he credited chiefly to England and India, as 

 the island itself is unproductive, and goods are 

 landed there as at a free port, for storage and 

 subsequent distribution. The trade employed 

 2,070 ships, representing 1,132,550 tons; or, 

 rather, that is the number of entries which the 

 returns exhibit, and in which, of course, sev- 

 eral vessels appear several times ; and of these, 

 again, 1,491 vessels, representing 800,000 tons, 

 were British. Germany, with 217 vessels, rep- 

 resenting 82,570 tons, ranks next, and America, 

 France, and Japan next in the order named ; 

 Austria, coming last, with one ship, measuring 

 290 tons. 



There were in China, in 1875, 3,607 foreign 

 residents, of whom rather more than half were 

 British, 536 American, 362 German, and 298 



French, more than a dozen different nationali- 

 ties contributing their quota to the remainder. 

 The Chinese population of the 14 ports open 

 to foreign trade was estimated at 4,751,000; 

 of which Canton alone was estimated to con- 

 tain 1,500,000, Tientsin coming next with 950,- 

 000, Hang-o.how and Foo-chow next in order 

 with 600,000 each, and Shanghai fifth with 

 278,000. 



China was again, during 1877, the scene of 

 a terrible famine. The scenes of the chief dis- 

 tress were in the north and east, in the ex- 

 treme north of Kiangsu, in Shantung, in Chihli, 

 and in Shansi.; and from Shantung, especially, 

 the accounts were extremely heart-rending. 

 The whole tract of country in question suffered 

 from a severe drought in the summer of 1876, 

 which nearly destroyed the crops; and the 

 peasantry, having used what little grain they 



HONG-KONG. 



had in store, or were able to gather, were in 

 the beginning of 1877 reduced to the last stage 

 of want. Mr. Richards, one of the Protestant 

 missionaries distributing alms in Shantung, 

 writes as follows of the suffering prevailing: 



Having finished their corn, the people are now 

 eating grain-husks, potato-stalks, and elm-bark, 

 buckwheat-stalks, turnip-leaves, and prase-seeds, 

 which they gather in the fields. When these are ex- 

 hausted they pull down their houses and sell the 

 timber, and it is reported everywhere that many eat 

 the rotten sorgum-stalks from the roof, and the dried 

 leaves of which they usually burn for fuel. Of their 

 eating fuel-leaves there is no doubt ; thousands eat 

 theif*ad thousands die because they caiu'Ot get 

 even that. They sell their clothes and children. 

 Having no clothiner left to protect them from the 

 cold, many take refuge in pits built underground to 

 keep themselves warm by the fetid breath of the 

 crowd. In the east suburb of Ching-chovv city there 



are four such pits. One-third of the number (240) 

 originally put into them are now dead within six 

 weeks, and no sooner is a corpse carried out than a 

 crowd are struggling for the place. Villages of 500 

 families report 300 dead of starvation ; villages of 

 300 report 100 persons dead. 



The Government did little to relieve the suf- 

 fering, and that was frequently very ill-advised. 

 A native firm at Lai-chow, for instance, had 

 becrun importing grain, when the officials or- 

 dained a price which compelled it to sell at a 

 loss, and of course immediately stopped further 

 supply from private sources. The suffering 

 increased as the year advanced, and in the 

 summer a famine fever broke out in the af- 

 flicted districts. This disease, which also made 

 its appearance in the Deccan, had been pre- 

 viously noticed among the sufferers in the Irish 



