Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1866-11-14
NOVEMBER a., 1866.
0blo Statesman,
FAMINE IN INDI4.


The People Starving by Thousands
A Terrible Picture of Suffering anc
Death-EsLImated Loss of Life in
one province, $500, 600. -' ''''
The Ne,0, York Times correspondent
gives the following interesting particulars
Of the great famine in 1ndiaaj
"a Calcutta paper, Of August ~, says
that 70, 900 paupers from the famine-strlck..
an district have inundated Calcutta, and
the arrivals are reckoned at two hundred.
day. We have, on the highest authorlty,a
frightful picture of the prevailing destltu-
tiop, especially in Cuttack. IL would pe
difficult to eXaggerate the magnitude ana
extent of the calamity. All the accounts
have seen have underrated it,. Nd. ,gT.. u
sit is difficult to obtain reliable stststlcs
as to the mortality from famine, :Ld chol-
era occasioned by it,. but all that nave
seen and heard has convinced me tnat IL
has been on scale of frightful magnitude
There are still four long, dark months pc
fore US, though for a month past there mas
seemed some slight abatement i'll the dis
tress. " t."' .-t
sin the four districts of Bolasare, Mid
napore, Sarum and Tirahoot, oyer 40,0OO
non-laboring paupers were being daily re-
heved, in the latter part Of July, beside
1000 who were able to make some return
for food by working. LlG, ...ft,. 80 a-
"a week later we find $4,000 daily re-
lieved in Bolasare and Midnapore alone,
while Poree and Nudda add 1900 more to
the sad list. 1t is believed that i'll Cuttack
the majority of the people must die before
relief can reach them, while lO0O persons
day were perishing at the single station
of BOlasare. .'t .t
"a vessel, the Tubal Cain, which was
bringing them food, was driven of by
storm, aud compelled to throw overheard
I.50O bags of rice; but this Is not all, and
possibly not the worst. The new crop OF
rice will soon be obtained, but it is likely
to. add new source of danger; for. lacking
other food, the poor people will devour ii
in its immature and unwholesome state
and dreadful pestilence will, probably, be
thus produced. Until the land can be coy
cred with a network of railroads and ca
nails, there seems no escape from the fire.
quent repetition of snch calamities, anc
that dayis far distant" I'D sI.la.a..n
., Another account says: ...I u
"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 fewer than twenty to Twenty-Five
thousand starving people were wandering
about the capital. At Mullicks Chat, where
the Bombay merchants raised fund anC
distributed food, there was at onetime sew
en- thousand furnishing applicants crowded
up. ~ 49,, .ag, rs. ..-.,-
-"They were described as placed in orde
upon an open space, waiting for the dlstrl
button. On one side nearly four thousanC
HindoOs, each with leaf platter before
hn Nynf N
hastily partaking of the scant dole they re
ceived. On the other side were thousand
Of furnishing Mussulmen ranged in lik
manner and watching, with silent ant
greedy eagerness, the meal of their Hlndo'
brethren, and counting, with bitter long
ings, the minutes till their turn. should
come. hi -gIn.# E...,
',Under the shelter of the Chat crowded
the women, girls and children. Outside
the gates were hundreds and hundreds whit
had lost their chance till the next distri
button; but, over all, a horrible dead 81
| lence; no chattering or converse, hardly
sound, excepting when, at Intervals, som'
wretch threw up his arms with an e1acula
| tion to Heaven, wrung from him by TIL
unappeasaple pangs Of hunger" ijG.lru
| More than this, the officials wrote homi
| descriptions of meeting dead bodies In ev
cry mornings ride; bodies lying in tn
road, with the village dogs eating them a
leisure. .E. Ir.- . s-y..Ht !; ..lq
A Calcutta journal stated that in Bala
sore, having population Of 10000, tn
deaths amounted, to three. hundred day
and, on the Government demanding of it
officials report against the LIBEL the Col
| lector of the District replied thai on the St
of August he had 245 deaths in the city O.
the 9th, l5I; and for the week ending tn
9th, 12B day-the bodies sometimes re
maining unburied for three days. Th
province of Orissa suffered the most Sc
verely, one paper declaring that 10000
souls have persisted in Maritime Oriss
alone. Indeed a telegram from India an
nounces that half the population of Oriss
have perished in the famine; that is, full
| y 600 600 of people, .#'e. ... .rr,.. .-a