DRAMAS OF FAMINE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8182, 25 July 1912, Page 18

DRAMAS OF FAMINE

RUSSIAN PEASANTS LIE DOWN IN ROWS TO AWAIT DEATH. In a letter to Mr Seobohm Eewntree (states the Russian Famine Relief Committee), Mr David Soskice, the wellknown Russian lawyer, says help will be urgently needed in tho famine-stricken districts until tho end of July. ‘'From many districts of the province of ..Saratov,” ho writes, “painful items ol famine news are arriving. In Feodorovka tho children, according to the schoolmaster’s - statement, have become as transparent as wax, and answer questions at their lessons by piteous supplier tion for food. “In tho village of Marinsk, of Tobolsk province, a little girl perpetually begged her mother for food. The unhappy mother, who herself had tasted nothing for several days, became suddenly deranged at tho sight of her child’s torments, and, flinging heresrf upon it, began gnawing at it like a savage beast. “In tho steppes of Samara there w scarcely a plot of land on which tho famished and exhausted population is not down with scurvy. A doctor, calling at Pensinsk Farm, near the village of Glushitza, requested to be conducted to 'those suffering from scurvy. There were many upon the farm, and one was at the point of death. The doctor attended to this patient first. It was a woman dving in a hut, which was half ruined. Not one tooth was left in her head (scurvy first of all attacks the teeth). Seeing the condition of the woman was hopeless, he asked if there were children. ‘Five/ was the answer. ‘"Are you feeding them?’ he asked, looking at the row of childish heads, lying motionless, side by side. “ ‘Wo give them a piece of bread whenever we are able. They share it there: was the answer. Upon examination, two of the children were found to be already suffering from typhoid. “ ‘My patient, their dying mother , looked to mo a shrivelled old woman,’ says tho doctor, ‘and I was horrified to find that she was only twenty-eight.’ “‘The distress here is frightful,’ says Mine. Orlova, writing from Samara, ‘and the most terrible thing is that tho Bashkir peasants have last all hope of succour. They stretch .themselves out in row-3 upon .the floor of ( their huts, and wait silently for death.’" . . Such aro tho dramas, of tho famine. Tho English Famine Relief Fund has collected and sent to tho Free Economic Society over .£13,000.