THE FAMINE IN PERSIA.

Otago Witness, Issue 1039, 28 October 1871, Page 16

THE FAMINE IN PERSIA.

A correspondent writes to the Daily New t, from Shiraz, Persia, as follows :—: — The famine in Persia may now he said to have almost come to an end, but the distress caused l>y it will continue for yet a long time. In the Pro\ince of Fjtrs the crops are being gathered in, and the price of bread, the principal food of the poor, has fallen considerably. Here in Shiraz; only a month ago six pounds of barley bread cost as much as sixteen pence, and often none could be got at all, even at that price : at present that quantity is sold for four pence or less. But there aro not many of the poorer people who can buy bread at even this, comparatively, low price. All their property, excepting only the most necessary clothes, has long since been sold or exchanged for bread : and it is but too evident that starvation will be the fate of a great many more. On the road from Bushire to Shiraz one can see at many places half interred bodies ; at a caravanserai, about 30 miles from Shiraz, many people — it is stated two hundred — died of starvation in about a week. Kazoroon, a town eighty miles from Shiraz, is half depopulated : many of its inhabitants went to Shiraz, Bushire, or other large towns, and great numbers died. On all the roads and highways crowds of beggars m the last stages'of destitution waylay the travellers, sanguinary fights, often resulting in the loss of life, take place over the carcases of mules, donkeys, or horses, which died on the road, and robberies with violence are very frequent. At Ispahan the crops, which are rather promising, have not yet been gathered in. A large arrival of corn tended greatly to lower the prices, and good bread costs there at present tenpenee the six-pound weight. At Teheran the distress is still very great, and will probably remain so. The crops are very bad indeed, hardly any rain fell during the winter, and none in the spring, and everything is burnt up. At Yezcl and Kerman the famine raged more than anywhere else. In a letter, dated Yezd, April last, it stated that corpses had been resorted to for food, and eight authentic cases of children/having been killed and devoured by their parents were enumerated. For the relief of the Quebres or Parsees, of Yerd and Kerman sums of money hare been collected in India by the benevolent of the Parsee religion. The British Minister at Teheran does much more towards alleviating the siTfferings of the poor at that place ; the Persian i frontier expedition, under Major-General Goldsmid, now on their way up country, i distribute rice and barley or wheat at each I station they pass ; but these are almost i the only instances of any relief having [ been given to the poor. The Persian Government shows the utmost possible apathy. Last year, just when the famine began, it at several places increased the taxes on gardens and arable lands ; the prices of garden and held produce immediately rose 25 per cent., or more, and the labourers' wages decreased proportionately. In some cases the consequences were even worse. The following is an instance : — The proprietor of a large garden could not at the moment pay the increased tax, and the governor of the district the ground was in, had the water necessary for irrigation cut oft' and led to another garden ; in a few days the first had nothing in it but dry, yellow plants. The water was still kept away, and in a month all the lemon and orange trees it contained, to the number of 12,000, were dry firewood. Two Persians, the Governors of Meshed and Yezd, have not shown themselves quite so indifferent as the rest of their countrymen ; they both distributed large sums of money among the poor in their districts.

A Unitarian minister at Mossley has died of hydrophobia, resulting from the bite of a, cat three month,B previous.