Chinese Marvel

The phenomenal appearance of the Dionne quintuplets in Canada last May sharpened the ears of world Press for news of multiple births.* Last month Rumania came forward with a report of sextuplets (TIME, July 23). That was an event which, according to the "Rule of 87," could occur only once in 5,000 million births. Subsequent investigations proved the Rumanian "sextuplets" to be only twins.

Last week China was crowing loudly over a marvel unknown to medical history. Not ultraphenomenal sextuplets, not hypersuperlative septuplets, but metaphysical octuplets were blazoned in the headlines of the Chinese Press. Seven sons and a daughter, seven felicitous stars and a comforting moon, were reported to have been born several months ago to the wife of Sam Ting, a Pearl River boatman. Only trouble with this Chinese marvel was that no one could substantiate it because Sam Ting, Mrs. Ting & family were supposed to be boating somewhere in Pearl River delta below Canton.

The "Rule of 87" allows one set of octuplets to 38 million million births. Professor Edward Murray East estimates 5.5 million births on earth yearly. Leaving aside the fact that the earth's population has grown from a few millions to two billion in the last 2,000 years, the world can count mathematically on only one set of octuplets being born every 690,000 years. As Physicist James Jeans declares that the Age of Man runs back 300,000 years, Mrs. Ting's marvel seemed to be some 390,000 years ahead of time.

*To protect the Dionne quintuplets from "exploiters from American cities who come to Canada to pull off a racket," the Province of Ontario last week appointed four "big strapping fellows" as guardians. Exclaimed Ontario's Attorney-General Arthur Wentworth Roebuck: ''There is no law which would permit us to deal adequately with the American gentlemen attempting to exploit the children. So we must be satisfied with circumventing their scheme. Promoters may take whatever action they please to enforce their contract to exhibit the children in Chicago. But if they get the children out of the hands of these guardians, they will be a good deal more skillful than they have been in the past."

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