From: "Robert Comer" 

Interesting, thanks.

We've seen here in the states too -- it seems to be a step we all go
through from time to time.

--
Bob Comer


"Phil Payne"  wrote in
message news:44945b75{at}w3.nls.net...
> "Robert Comer"  wrote in message
> news:4494507e{at}w3.nls.net...
>> Whatever Geo, your ideal China isn't the China of today and that's the
> last
>> I'll say on the subject.
>
> Only in the last few days I've seen some newly published scholarship.
>
> There are, especially in the east of England, many free-standing churches.
> Miles from anywhere and surrounded by mounds that represent ancient and
> abandoned villages.  The best known to me is Wadenhoe in Northamptonshire.
>
> Traditionally these are known as "plague villages" -
villages where the
> Black Death reduced the population below viability.
>
> But recent research shows that the decline of these villages and outbreaks
> of Bubonic Plague are not contemporaneous.
>
> These villages were, apparently, killed by sheep.  Of note (but it's bad
> p/r) is that the ancestors of Diana, Princess of Wales dispossessed around
> 14,000 farm labourers and left them to starve - sheep were far more
> profitable.
>
> I suspect the Chinese are thinking much along the same lines.  Thousands
> (and more) starved during the Highland clearances, a century or two after
> just as many starved for the same reasons further south.
>
>

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5