THE INDIAN FAMINE.
Human Jieings Transformed into Animals. This is what the Bombay correspondent of the " Daily Mail" states about the famine when raging at its worst about a year ago : " The famine spreads and deepens. Starvation uncovers the animal instincts. When unsatisfied desire for food or drink seizes on animals, they pack. So it is with humanity. The task before the district officer at this stage is comparatively easy : lie can gather the people into famine camps and feed them according to his famine code. A marvellous work is this same code, entering into the smallest detail, for famine relief has been reduced by successive Governments to an exact science " Villagers hidden in the jungle may be overlooked, or in other villages persons may remain behind, restrained from the relief- works by hatred of public charity, by pride of caste, or by blind fatalism. If they be not cared for, famine in its acutest form gets hold of them. The stricken folk scatter and wander, their only thought to still, if only for a moment, the intolerable craving that burns within their bellies. They are animals now, starving animals, with no ties of affection and no sense of decency, with no desire to live, with no will to die. They wander hither and thither until, their last strength ebbing, they lie down in the scant shade of a palm or creep into a quiet thicket to rest, to sleep, to die."
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Bibliographic details
Golden Bay Argus, Volume VII, Issue 69, 26 September 1901, Page 2
Word Count
242THE INDIAN FAMINE. Golden Bay Argus, Volume VII, Issue 69, 26 September 1901, Page 2
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