The Portland daily press., 1866-11-26
The Famine i'm Eudia.

A correspondent of the London Times gives
the following interesting particulars of the
| great famine in India:
A Calcuttapa paper ofAugust is says 1000 pau
pcrs from the famine stricken districts have in
undated Calcutta, and the arrivals are 200 a
day. We have, on the highest authority, a
frightful picture of the prevailing restitution,
especially in Cattack. 1t will be difficult to
exaggerate the magnitude and extent of the
calamity All the accounts have seen have
moderated it, and it is difficult to obtain rela-
BILE statistics as 10 the mortality from famine
and cholera, occasioned by it, but all that
have seen and heard has convinced me that
| it has been, on scale of frightful magnitude
There are still four long dark months before us,
| though for a month past there has seemed some
| slight abatement in the distress. In the four
| districts of Balasore, Midnapor, Searum and
Tihoot over 1000 paupers were being daily re-
lieved in the early part of July, and there were
1000 who we're able to make some return for
food by working A week later we find "A 900
daily relieved in Balasore alone, while Poore
and Huda add II 600 more TO the sad list 1t is
believed that in Catlack the majority OF the
people must die before relief can reach them,
while 900 persons day were perishing at the
single station Of Bolaar. A vessel, the Tubal
Cain which was bringing them food was driven
off by storm and compelled to throw over
board |, 800 bags of bacon.
But this is not all, and possibly not the worst.
The new crop of rice will soon be obtained
The poor people will devour it in its imma-
ture and unwholesome state, and some say that
dreadful pestilence will thus be produced, I'm
til the land can be covered with a net work of
railroads and canals, there seems to be no es-
cape from the frequent repetition of such ca
lamities and that day is not far distant.
Another account says when the famine was
at its height the starving poor, we are told,
crowded into the streets OF Calcutta, and it
was estimated that no less than 10000 to 25,-
rytT1rr dor
about the capital. At Mullicksghat, where the
Bombay merchants raised fund and -distrib-
uted food, there were at one time 1900 famish-
ing Hindoo applicants crowded in on them
seated on the damp ground, waiting for the
distribution. On the other side were thous-
ands of furnishing Mussulmen, arranged, and
watching with silent and greedy eagerness the
meal of their Hindoo brethren, and counting
with bitter longing the minutes till their turn
should come. Under the shelter of the CHAT
crowded the women, girls and children out
side the CHAT were hundreds who had lost
their chance till the next distribution, and
over all horrible dead silence, no chattering
or converse, hardly sound excepting when,
at intervals, some wretch threw up his arms
with an ejaculation to heaven, wrung from
him by the unappeasable pangs of hunger.
More than this. Officials wrote home descrip-
tons of finding dead bodies in every mornings
ride, bodies lying in the road with the village
dogs eating them.
A Calcutta journal states that in Balasore
having a population Of 1900, the deaths
amounted to 300 day, and on the government
demanding of it's officials report against the
libel, the collector of the district replied that
on August he had 245 deaths in the city, on
t the 9TH 151, and for the week ending the 9Th
I izo a DAY, the bodies sometimes remaining I'M
buried red tor three days. The province of Orissa
sune1eo most severely one paper declaring that
49UOoo souls have persisted in maritime Orissa
alone. indeed, telegram from India announc-
es that half the population of Orissa have per-
people.