The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-30 00:00:00

VOLUNTEER SHAM FIGHT AND FIELD
DAY ON EASTER MONDAY.
Gentlemen are respectfully informed that the Dining
Rooms will be kept Open until a late hour on that day.
THOMAS PRICE, Superintendent.
THE WELLINGTON, 160, Piccadilly,
March 28, 1861.

THEATRE-ROYAL, HAYMARKET,
Lessme, Mr. J. B. Buokstone.

On EASTER MONDAY (April 1), I will be performed
A. DUKE IN DIFFICULTIES. Mrs. Stirling, Miss F.
Haydon, Mrs. Wilkins, Miss Fanny Stirling, Mr. Buckstone,
Mr. Compton, Mr. Howe, &s.

After which, will be revived, with entirely new scenery
and effects, and all the original music by the late Sir Henry
Bishop, the melodrama of THE MILLER AND HIS MEN.
Commence at 7.)

_ROYAL PRINCESS'S THEATRE.-
Lessee and Manager, Mr. A. Harris.
On Easter Monday, THRICE MARRIED. Messrs. Shore,
Meadows, Garden, and Miss C. Leclercq.
Followed by HAMLET. Hamlet, Mr. Fechter. Sup-
ported by Messrs. Ryder, Hermann Vezin, Graham, Shore,
Meadows, &e ; Misses Heath, R. Leclercq, and Elsworthy.

NEW THEATRE-ROYAL, ADELPHI.-
Sole Proprietor and Manager, Mr. B. Webster.
TO-NIGHT, the celebrated Italian Illusionist, ANTO-
NIO POLETTI, in his extraordinary and wonderful enter-
tainment of NATURAL and CH YMICAL MAGIC ; and
Pell's (the Original Bones) Ethiopian Minstrel.. Doors open
at half•past Six, commence at Seven. No charge for book-
ing.

ADELPHI, NEW THEATRE-ROYAL,
Sole Proprietor and Manager, Mr. Benj. Webster.
On EASTER MONDAY, a new drama, MAGLIORE,
PRESTIDIGITA7OR. Messrs. B. Webster, J. L. Toole,
D. Fisher, dr,c.; Miss K. Kelly, Miss 11. Simms, dm.
Alter which, OUR FEMALE AMERICAN COUSIN.
Miss Julia Daly.
Doors open at half past B—Commence at 7.

CANTERBURY-HALL CONCERTS!!
Westminster-road.
Proprietor .. .. C. Morton.
A Grand Selection from Verdi's new Opera,
IL CORSARO,
(This opera has never been produced in this or any other
country, except at these Concerts), having met with that de-
cided success which charactisei the most popular works of
this great Master, will be performed EVERY EVENING ;
together with a Selection from LA FIGLIA DEL REGGI-
MENTO, by Donizetti,
Principal Artistes—Miss Russell, Madame Maria, Miss
Tyrrell, Mr. H. Herbert, Signor Tivoli, H. Drummond, and
C. W. Bernard. Director, Mr. F. Jonghmans.
The Comic Department comprises Messrs. E. Marshall, A.
B. Hollingsworth, J. Blanchard, F. Bell, W. H. Welland, and
the Brothers Conrad.
John Martin's Three celebrated Pictures will remain on
view a short time longer in the Fine Arts Gallery of the
Establishment.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
THIS DAY.—Morning, 4h. 18m.—Afternoon, 4h. 40m.
To-Ronaow.-Morning, sh. 2m.—Afternoon, sh. 27m.

THR WEATHER.—Strx OFFICE, MARCH 30, 1861,
TIDERMOYETBR, IN THE SHAM!.
65—highest since loon yesterday.
41—lowest this morning and during the night.
50—this day at noon.

BAuomrrmt-29.68.
WIND - South -Westerly—light ; with dull weather
some rain in the morning.

LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 186

Sixteen years have elapsed since the British
Empire has revealed in any part of its vast
dominions anything at all comparable to the appal-
ling spectacle now unhappily being witnessed in
Hindostan. The spectacle, that is, of a whole people
stricken down by Famine, that dread scourge of
humanity which is not only terrible in itself, but
yet more terrible in what may be termed its inevi-
table consequences—Famine being ever the fore-
runner of Pestilence.
Since Ireland was desolated, in parts actually
depopulated, in 1845-1846, the British Government
has not been called upbn to deal with any calamity
so sudden, so widespread, so destructive as that
which has now fallen, which is yet falling, which,
alas, must still long continue to fall upon the un•
fortunate people of Upper India. The intelligence
received by every successive overland-mail is, in
regard to this great scourge, of the most afflicting
character. It is intelligence not of the " threat-
enings" of famine merely, but of its frightful
devastations. Multitudes of the poor starving people,
old and young, men, women, and children,we read of
in those afflicting advices, as dying absolutely on
the way to seek relief at Delhi or other stations--
littering the highroads one by one, in pairs, in clus-
ters, as they sank down exhausted and there ex-
pired, some of them even within sight of the very
places to which they were going in search of assist-
ance. Among the incidents of this kind which
have the most recently occurred, there has been
related the case of a family, consisting of the father,
the mother, and three children, who were found
shortly before the last mail left India, huddled
together on the road, near the fort, hard by the
city of Delhi. " The father, mother, and two of
the children were dead ; and the remaining child,
still living, was clinging to its dead mother's breast !"
Incidents of even a more terrible nature than
this, are spoken of in the last advices coming to us
from those desolated northern districts of Hindo-
stan—incidents almost as sickening as those told of
by the chronicler of the fall of Jerusalem. If
mothers have not been tempted, as they were within
the sacred city, to devour their own children,
"many impoverished and starving parents," we now
read, " are said to be anxious [there in Upper India]
to give away or sell their children to save their lives."
According to the Meerut Relief Committee, within
that district alone upwards of a hundred (109) were
known to have died from starvation prior to the
22d of January. Within a single week the aggre-
gate number of applicants for food was doubled—
had risen -within the brief interval of those seven
days from four hundred to eight hundred ! " Poor
houses and dispensaries," these accounts add, " had
been established, and during the month of January
the numbers who had received relief were—in the
city poor-house, 8,205, equal to the whole popula-
tion of an ordinary provincial town; sick in the
dispensary, 2,714; in Gbazeeabad, 11,345 ; in
Hauper, 3,600; total, 25,864 persons !" As during
the Irish famine, of more than three winters back,
public works had been judiciously opened in those
afflicted provinces of Hindostan : more than seven
thousand natives having been in this way enabled to
earn their food, upon the public works thus opened
at Rhorkee and Dehra, at Hauper and at Shahjehan-
pore. The famine thus dessolating those
ill-fated portions of our Indian Empire, resulting
not alone from the perishing of the grain crops,
but from the destruction also with the grain
crops of the esculent roots that might otherwise
have provided nutriment to the population : the
very trees withering away, and the standing crops
rotting under a plague as deadly as the Egyptian
locust—the novel, and hitherto, in those doomed
regions of Upper India, unheard of plague of the
black caterpillar.
Scarcely have Englishmen here in the midst of
their own homes, awakened to a knowledge of
be fearful scourge that is
TIM striking down
y tens, and by hundreds, and by thou-
sands, their Asiatic
fellow subjects in Hindos-
tan—when the most prompt and energetic efforts
are immediately made
to the end that substantial
help may be at once gathered together and de-
spa tehed to the scene of this wide-spread starvation.
These endeavours, moreover, are
not being made
upon a vague or carelessly arranged
system, but
upon a system carefully and regularly organised.
A noble catalogue of subscriptions was published
by us yesterday, among our advertisements;
the sum already collected in this way

under the auspices of the LORD MA.TOi

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THE SUN.