Urbana union. [volume] (Urbana, Ohio) 1862-1872, 1866-11-21

rible Picture of Suffering and Death--Bs
timated Loss of Life in One Province
2,5OO,OOO.
The New York Times correspondent
gives the following interesting particular
of the great famine in India
"a Calcutta paper, of August 16
says that 10000 paupers from the famine
stricken district have inundated Calcut
ia, and the arrivals are reckoned at two
hundred day. We have on the highes
authority, a frightful picture of the pre-
vailing destitution, especially in Cuttack
It would be difficult to exaggerate the
magnitude and extent of the calamity
All the accounts 1 have seen have un.
derated it.
at is difficult to obtain reliablestatis-
tics as to 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 Bolasare,
MidUapore, Sarum and Tirahoot, over
40, 900 non-laboring paupers were being
daily relieved, in the latter party of July,
beside z 1000 who were able to make some
return for food by working.
A week later we find $4,000 daily re-
Dol ~ o1,,,,o
while Poree and Nudda and Il, 600 more
to the sad list. It is believed that in
Cuttack the majority of the people must
die before relief can reach them, while
1000 persons a day were perishing at
the single station of Bolasare.
'eA vessel, the Tubal Cain, which was
bringing them food, was driven off by a
storm, and compelled to throw overheard
1900 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 a new source of danger
for, lacking other food, the poor people
will devour it in its immature and an
wholesome state, and dreadful pestilence
will, probably, be thus produced. Until
the land can be covered with network
of railroads and canals, there seems no
escape from the frequent repetition Of
such calamities, and that day is far dis
tant.
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 fewer than twenty to
twenty-five thousand starving people were
wandering about the capital. At Mul-
licks Chat, where the Bombay merchants
raised fund and distributed food there
was at one time seven thousand famisb-
ing applicants crowded up.
"They were described as placed in
order upon an open space, waiting for the
distribution. On one side nearly four
thousand Hindoos, each with leaf plat
ter before him, were scattered on the wet
ground, hastily partaking of the scant
dole they received. On the other side
we're thousands Of famishing Mussulmen
ranged in like manner, and watching,
with silent and greedy eagerness, the
meal of their Hindoo brethren, and
counting, with bitter longings, the minu-
tes till their turn should come.
Under the shelter fthe Chat crowded
the women, girls and children Outside
the gates we're hundreds and hundreds
who had lost their chance till the next
distribution; but, over all, horrible
dead silence; no chattering or converse,
hardly sound, excepting when, at inter
walls, some wretch threw mp his arms with
an ejaculation to Heaven, wrung from
him by the unappeasable pangs of hung
er."
More than this, the officials wrote
home descriptions of meeting dead bodies
in every mornings ride; bodies lying in
the road, with the village dogs eating
them at leisure.
A Calcutta journal stated that in Bala-
sore. having a population of 10000, the
deaths amounted to three hundred a day, |
and, on the Government demanding of
its officials report against the libel, the
Collector of the District replied that on
the 9Th Of Augustine had 245 deaths in
the city; on the 9th, 151; and for the
week ending the 9th, 126 a day-tbe
bodies sometimes remaining unburied for
three days. The province of Orissa
suffered the most severely one paper de-
,laring that 100000 souls have perished
in Maritime Orissa alone. Indeed, a
telegram from India announces that half
the population of Orissa have perished
IN tie famine that is, fully $500, 900
If people.