FEARFUL PLAGUE IN CHINA

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3130, 28 January 1911, Page 7

FEARFUL PLAGUE IN CHINA

MOST CONTAGIOUS AND VIRULENT.

DISASTER SPREADING RAPIDLY.

GENERAL EXODUS FROM PEKIN.

[United press association-copyright^

PEKIN, Jan. 26. . Legation doctors consider the plague the most contagious and virulent in the world’s history. 'There were scarcely anv recoveries. Yersen serum was ” used - without effect.

The plague is spreading rapidly towards Hangkau. Twenty-six bodies were found' on the railway south of Tientsin. There is an exodus of foreign women and children from Pekin.

The epidemic was spread by Chinese hunters, who shipped furs to Vancouver.

One hundred foreign experts are urgently needed.

SYDNEY

AUTHORITY'S OPINION

(Received Jan. 28, 12.55 a.m)

SYDNEY, Jan. 27. Dr. Ashburton Thompson, President of the. Boaid of Health, a prominent authority does not think there is anything in the statement that the plague in China will spread otherwise than in the wavs now known. Ho fears that owin'- to local conditions and the want of trained experts, the epidemic will go on until it has exhausted itself.

RELIEF SUBSCRIPTIONS IN NEW ZEALAND.

[PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.] WELLINGTON, Jan. 27

As the result of the Chinese Consul's appeal, £‘2l4 has so far been subscribed throughout New Zealand in aid of the sufferers by the famine in China.. £2OO is to be cabled at once. Of the total subscriptions £147 has come from Chinese. It is considered that- the public might have made better response to the appeal. Further subscriptions are’said to be urgently needed.

AWFUL DISTRESS, AN INTERNATIONAL MENACE. Latest reports received at Washington describe the present distress in rural China through the failure of the crops as awful. About a million Chinese, it is estimated, -will starve unless they are assisted to exist until the next harvest, in May. The most inclement part of the winter and spring has yet to be passed. The American Vice-Consul at Nanking has reported that he lias himself .seen Chinese dying of cold arid starvation, and that the destitution is at presentextreme.

The International Relief Association is endeavouring to collect £500.000 to eary the most keenly afflicted Chinese through till the harvest.

CORPSES IN THE STREETS OF HARBIN.

The efforts to combat the plague at Fudziadian, is, says a message from Harbin, being disastrously frustrated by tbe ignorance of tbe populace. Both Chinese and European physicians are working hard to get the epidemic under, but their efforts are grievously misinterpreted by the mob. On several occasions the doctors were seized and seferely beaten, not only by the populace, b utactually by the Chinese soldoiers. _who should have protected them. At Harbin the position is becoming critical. It is feared that the fact of the plague having attacked many of the employees at the great mills there will result in infection being carried in the foodstuffs exported to the Amur and maritime provinces. Twenty-four corpses of plague victims were picked up the streets of Harbin in one dav.

WOFUL IGNORANCE OF CHINESE OFFICIALS.

The epidemic of bubonic plage in 'Northern China is, says ail Independent Cable,Service message from Harbin, increasing in an alarming manner, principally owing to the woful ignorance of the Chinese authorities, who are attempting to cope with the disease by the most idle’and superstitious measure l ?. It is now abundantly apparent that the plague will become a serious international menace unless it is taken in hand immediately by one or moreu of the foreign Powers.

200 DEATHS A DAV

News revived at iSt. Petersburg form Fudziadian shows tha the bubonic plague is making terrible progress there. The deaths are now about 200 a day. The epidemic is spreading to Mukden. Kirin, and other places in Northern China which have commercial intercourse with the district first infected. _ The Rusian Government to-day decided to urge the Chinese Government to allow Fudziadian to be cleaned out thoroughly under the supervision of the Russian authorities and physicians.