THE SKETCHER. ON A FAMINE CAMP IN BURMAH.

Otago Witness, Issue 2274, 30 September 1897, Page 49

THE SKETCHER. ON A FAMINE CAMP IN BURMAH.

This camp i& the gathering-place of all the ■waifs and strays of the district. For in a famine who suffers first? It is not the farmers, nor the little trader?, nor the handicraftsmen, nor even the l&bourers ; these all suffer, of course, but not first nor worst. It is those who live upon the superfluities of their fellow men, whose subsistence is by ministering to their pleasures, who in times of dearth are the foremost rained. The camp is full of such. Theatrical performersare here in troop?. In good years they would be roaming about the country, playing here and playing there, rejoicing the hearts of the young people with their jeßts, and the old people with their tragedies. But now in this famine who - can afford to pay them ? The thought of each man is how to get food to-morrow for his wife, his children, himself. And so the players have wandered about ■wearily, their little saving 3 growing daily less, until they have at length found themselves upon a famine camp. The prince is now digging all day in the sun, the princess is carrying eartb, the maids of honour are bearing water — their happy, careless lives all come to an end for the time. And there are proprietors of marionette shows, who have stored their famous dolls, the kings and the queens, the tigers and the wild elephants, in some friend's house, and come here to await better times. There are fortune-tellers who have laid aside their books and charms and are delving here a harder fortune out of the rock tban ever they foretold for thetneelves. There are acrobats and tumblers ; and among the women how many there are of those whose trade islove I There is no end to them in the cacap. For love and penury, go ■ not together, and the lads who loved them last year ate this year finding it bard enough to make a living for themselves. The girls' gay dresses are sold, their little ornaments gone ; their only powder now is the white dust that the wind blows upon their faces, and they work all day in the sun, going to and fro with the baskets of eartb, till they are weary to death. It is the nemesis of those live by pleasure that, when bard times come, they are the first to suffer ; like froth upon the wave, they are the first to be stranded on theshore3 of destitution. I suppose that out of these 8000 people on the camp, not one-half have ever laboured at such work before. Some of the men may have been ploughmen, labourers, or cartmen, but not diggers. None of the women probably have ever dug or carried earth before. In Burmese villages women do not do this. They draw water and they weave ; they plant the rice-plants, and they glean and tie up the crops ; but they do not dig. When the camp was first started very few of the gacg3 could do their task. Some could not do half, and yet ib is not a heavy one. It is so allotted tbat it shall be a fair test of a labourer's destitution — thab v he should be ■williug to do it in order to win a bare subsistence. It is intended to prevent any but those who are puahed to it by necessity from coming; that is all. On the "first few days .there was bub one cry as you went along. the work, that their hands were blistered. Men came and showed them to you, complaining that «uch work ehould be demanded of them ; their hands could not do it. Bat in a few days that all righted itself, and after a week or two the tasks were completed early. The labourers are formed into gangs — 60, 80, 100 in each gang — with a ganger. Usually from one village, or a group of neighbouring villages, they all know each other. are related most probably, and can

bear with each other's shortcomings. Thus a woman with two or three children, joining a gang of her own people, finds her new lifa made easier for her ; if they were strangers it would not be S3 easy, but her fellowvillfigers bear with her and help her. She cannot do her share of the task — how can she, poor thing? There is baby to suckle, the fat naked brown baby who sprawls about in a tiny shelter the mother has made for ifc out of a ragged mat and a stick. There are the two elder children, say four years old and five — not old enough to work, but who like to lie on their stomachs and peep down, some 15ft or so, into the excavation ; they have to be rescued every now and then from this perilous amusement, and promptly punished. And the woman cannot work very hard, for Bhe is not yet strong.

There is a market too in the camp, where the staples of life are sold. Little stalls are builr, and the rice and grain-sellers are encouraged to come and establish themselves here. There is not muck for sale —rice and beano, dried fish and oil, and a few vegetables ; a famine wage does not admit of luxuries. For the principle of a famine camp is this : it is a place where everyone — man, woman, or child — may obtain work and enough to live on, so that no one need starve. It is not meant for anyone who can nod labour elsewhere in the ordinary occupations of life ; ib is not a place where money can be earned ; it is not a place for idler?. The cost of famine works is very great, and the taxpayers must be saved as much as possible ; moreover it would be bad economy to draw labour to these works, which are not usually very productive, at the cost of other industries. So the rule on a famine camp is this — a fair task must be performed, and for this a wage which would buy sufficient fqod to keep the labourers in health is Riven. This is calculated according to a sliding scale, and in addition there is £i a day ; to children

in arms and old people unable to work a gratuitous dole is given. — Macmillan's Magazine.