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RED CHINA: Death to Sparrows

"No warrior shall be withdrawn until the battle is won," proclaimed the Peking People's Daily. "All must join battle ardently and courageously; we must persevere with the doggedness of revolutionaries." Into battle, thus exhorted, went the Chinese millions to wage war on the lowly sparrow.

At dawn one day last week, the slaughter of the sparrows in Peking began, continuing a campaign that has been going on in the countryside for months. The objection to the sparrows is that, like the rest of China's inhabitants, they are hungry. They are accused of pecking away at supplies in warehouses and in...

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