Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1866-10-26
The Famine in India.

The following facts concerning the ter
rible famine now prevailing in certain dis
tricts of India are gathered from our last
foreign papers:
"The distress is most prevalent and
most dire in Bengal, and it exists in vary
ing degrees over the whole presidency.
In Orissa, Nuddea, Beerbhoom, the Cut
tack, nd-other districts, the scarcity hes
been intensified to degree that is simply
devastation; thousands have died and ara
dying IL abject want. The starving poor
have crowded into Calcutta, and the streets
are full of distressing scenes and incidents.
1t has been estimated that no fewer than
10000 to 25,ooo starving people are wan
dering about the capital. Disease aids
want to thin the crowd with horrible ra-
pidity; but the multitude grows notwith-
standing, recruited continually. To cope
with this distress effectually is hardly pos
ible; the government action is complained
of as sluggish; individual efforts, although
they do much, are comparatively power
less to stem the tide. The native rich
classes, however, are conspicuous by the
exertions they make. At Mullick's Chat
the Bombay merchants have raised fund
and they distribute food. The crowd of
furnishing men and women who come to
this part for the scanty meal has constant
ly increased, till at the time the mail left
1000 applicants crowded up. They were
described as placed in order upon an open
space, waiting for the distribution. On
one side nearly 1000 Hindoos, each with
a leaf platter before him, were scattered
ON the wet ground, hastily partaking of tho
scanty dole they received. On the other
side were thousands of famishing Mussle-
men ranged in like manner, and watching
with silent and greedy eagerness the meal
of their Hindoo brethren, and counting
with bitter longings the minutes till their
turn should come. Under shelter of the
Chat crouched the women, girls and chill
dren. Outside the gates were hundreds
and hundreds who had lost their chance
till the next distribution. But over all a
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. A stranger passing
near would have no intimation that within
yard of the road 1000 starving crea-
lures had assembled to snatch meal.
In Calcutta where more relief is avail
able than elsewhere, we are told that there
are 100000 starvlings subsisting on daily
charity and that the number of pauper
bodies buried at one ghaut alone rose from
so, at which it stood last year, to 329 in
the first nine days of August. The last
weekly return from one little station Bal
asore) shows 103 deaths, and even this
fearful rate of mortality gives but an in
!, adequate notion of the actual state of af.
fairs, for we are further informed that, Il
we treble this number for the many who
: become the food of the jackal and the
vulture in the lonely jungle or ditch, We
shall not 60 beyond the sad truth One
relief agent finds people dying slowly Of
starvation in the midst of crowded baz.
Ear, in village where it is so common
for eight or ten to die daily in the streets
that no one takes any notice The hor
rors of pestilence are now being added 4
those of starvation"