In a good year one sheng of rice (6-2/3lbs.) costs thirty-five cash (less than one penny), it now costs 110 cash.

The normal price of maize is sixteen cash the sheng, it now cost sixty-five cash the sheng.
To make things worse, the weight of the sheng had been reduced with the times from twelve catties to five catties, and at the same time the relation of cash to silver had fallen from 1640 to 1250 cash the tael.
The selling of its female children into slavery is the chief sorrow of this famine-stricken district.

During last year it is estimated, or rather, it is stated by the Chinese, that no less than three thousand children from this neighbourhood, chiefly female children and a few boys, were sold to dealers and carried like poultry in baskets to the capital.

At ordinary times the price for girls is one tael (three shillings) for every year of their age, thus a girl of five costs fifteen shillings, of ten, thirty shillings, but in time of famine children, to speak brutally, become a drug in the market.

Female children were now offering at from three shillings and fourpence to six shillings each.