THE FAMINE IN INDIA.

Western Star, Issue 1291, 24 February 1897, Page 1

THE FAMINE IN INDIA.

HEARTRENDING OQEJTE3.

Distressing accounts of the privations suffered by the natives in some of the famine-stricken districts of India appear in the Melbourne’ ‘papers, through letters from missionaries. One correspondent dealsyvitlijthe condition of affairs existing in Gohdwana, Central Provinces. The natives, the Goods, are he says, the largest aboriginal tribe injindia, numbering over two . millions. They are an exceptionally honest and quiet c race: At the time the:letter was r Written they were in sore straights, and then* condition is not likely to have improved slice The harvest of millet upon which they depend, being an unirrigated crop, had failed ; their reserve stock had been exhausted by three bad seasons, and grain, which was selling at very high r&tes in towns was unattainable in the remoter villages. The Goods, said the writer, would not rise or riot but would die in silence and many had done so already. Independent and, it must be added, ignorant, in many cases they would hot avail themselves of relief works and poor-houses having, with regard to the latter, unfounded but enteredsuch institution* they woulJ be shipped out or the Otfeatey ae V leacoolies. “How can I continues the writer, “ the sights seen in the bazaar and even at our own door" the poor women crouched in a corner of the bazaar, too despairing to beg any more, and so cowed that she shrinks away with dread when you touch her ; the man falling down in the middle of the road dying of hunger his limbs already as cold as death ; the poor emaciated child, whose begging in the bazaar had only produced three cowries, his share towards the support of six people, all of whom afterwoods diedjone by one in spite of food; the people found at nightfall at the ghat making porridge and bread of ‘kora,’ the worthless bran of rice; the mothers with tiny babies for whom they had no nourishment (this is s large and pitt iful class) the poor emaciated and lovely girl with a mother dying of dysentry at homo ; the blind, the lame, the aged, the wounded, unable, of course, to work and often really starving. These things have already been in the past; what more awful things are we to see in the future? A great deal has already been done to relieve the widespread distress, but a great deal more remains to be done, and the letter concludes with an urgent appeal for assistance, especially on behalf of the orphans whose numbers .dye increasing day by day, and whose condition is most pitiable. In India a life may be saved for one penny per day.