“The old and weak find it hard to trudge along. The young and solitary and feeble are not accustomed to run about. They wait for death in their houses, stript of everything. The cold winds pierce through their bones.  They have no rice to cook, and the cravings of hunger are most painful. There is no way by which they can ascend to heaven, no door by which they can enter the earth. All their plans are exhausted. To die is better form them than to live. They hang themselves from beams, or throw themselves into the rivers. Everywhere such heartrending sights are to be seen.” (p. 20).

China 1878, 4 woodcuts, from The Famine in China, Illustrations by a Native Artist, with a translation of the Chinese Text (by the Rev. James Legge), London: China Famine Relief Fund/Kegan Paul & Co., 1878.

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