Page 64 - GFA – A Different Drumbeat
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GFA – A Different Drumbeat 64
goods has already been eaten. Dogs and wolves have been living on the
dead bodies of the natives.
The Havre Daily News – Montana Wednesday April 9, 1930
REPORT FAMINE VICTIMS EATING THEIR CHILDREN
Inspector Declares Agony Of Past Winter Can Never Be Described; 600,000
Perish
Peiping. China. April 8 (AP)
Reports received by the China International Relief Commission say that so
terrible have famine conditions become in the Wei river district that in some
cases parents have eaten their children.
V. G. Plymire, missionary, writing from Tsinghai on March 8 to John Earl
Baker, director of relief operations, said: “OnIy two days from here several
families ate their children.”
Findlay Andrew, travelling inspector, reporting conditions in the central Shensi
District, wrote “It is estimated that by the time of the wheat harvest in May
there will be only 3,000,000 inhabitants remaining of 6,000,000 when the
famine began. The agony of the past winter can never be described. In the
the small Wukung district alone there have been 600.000 deaths from
starvation and cold.” Andrew reported that the crop prospects were fair, but
the problem was to transport food in order to tide the victims over until the
harvest.
As the above indicates, what GFA wrote in reports, newsletters and media articles had
stirred people around the world. "He often dropped in at the CIM house", Paul Contento
told David Bentley-Taylor, "and we discovered his great capacity for telling stories in his
own inimitable way. Night after night we would meet around the fire and listen to GFA,
hanging on his every word". So moving and graphic are his writings that in the next chapter
I will let him tell his own story of the months after he left Chefoo.
Return to Table of Contents
goods has already been eaten. Dogs and wolves have been living on the
dead bodies of the natives.
The Havre Daily News – Montana Wednesday April 9, 1930
REPORT FAMINE VICTIMS EATING THEIR CHILDREN
Inspector Declares Agony Of Past Winter Can Never Be Described; 600,000
Perish
Peiping. China. April 8 (AP)
Reports received by the China International Relief Commission say that so
terrible have famine conditions become in the Wei river district that in some
cases parents have eaten their children.
V. G. Plymire, missionary, writing from Tsinghai on March 8 to John Earl
Baker, director of relief operations, said: “OnIy two days from here several
families ate their children.”
Findlay Andrew, travelling inspector, reporting conditions in the central Shensi
District, wrote “It is estimated that by the time of the wheat harvest in May
there will be only 3,000,000 inhabitants remaining of 6,000,000 when the
famine began. The agony of the past winter can never be described. In the
the small Wukung district alone there have been 600.000 deaths from
starvation and cold.” Andrew reported that the crop prospects were fair, but
the problem was to transport food in order to tide the victims over until the
harvest.
As the above indicates, what GFA wrote in reports, newsletters and media articles had
stirred people around the world. "He often dropped in at the CIM house", Paul Contento
told David Bentley-Taylor, "and we discovered his great capacity for telling stories in his
own inimitable way. Night after night we would meet around the fire and listen to GFA,
hanging on his every word". So moving and graphic are his writings that in the next chapter
I will let him tell his own story of the months after he left Chefoo.
Return to Table of Contents
