New Orleans daily crescent., 1866-11-19

| The New York Times correspondent gives the
| following interesting particulars OF the great fam
inc in India: Calcutta paper says 20,Q00 pau
pers from the famine-stricken district have mum
dated Calcutta and the arrivals are reckoned at
two hundred per day. We have, on the highest
authority, trightful picture of the prevailing des
titTton, especially in Cuttack. 1t would be diff:
cult to eXaggerate the magnitude and extent of
the calamity. All the accounts have seen have
anlerrated it. 1t is difficult to obtain reliable sta
tistics as to the mortality from famine and cholera
ocGasioned 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 dis
tricts of BetarZe, Iednapore, Sarum ard Tirahoot,
over 40 600 non-laboring paupers were being daily
relieved in the latter part of July, besides 1000
who were able to make some return for food by
working. week later we find $4,000 daily re
lieTed in Batarze and Midnapore alone, while
Poore and Nudda add III 900 more to the sad list
1t is believed that in Cuttack the majority of the
people must die before relief can reach them;
while 1000 persons day were perishing at the
single station of Belasare. A vessel, the Tudal
Cain, which was bringing them food, was driven
off by q storm and compelled to throw overheard
one thousand five hundred bags of rice; but this
is not all, and possibly not the worst. The new
crop of rice willsOon be obtained but it is likely
to add new source of danger, for lacking other
food. the poor people will deYour it in its imma-
ture and unWh0lesdme state, and dreadful pes
LiEGuCG VIII JIG ptUbtDB blll5 pIpuIGGt CltIlI u6
land can be covered with network of railroad
and canals, there seems to be no escape from the
frequent repetition Of such calamities and that
day is fan distant.
Another account says; When the famine was
at its height the starving poor, told, crowded
into the streets Of Calcutta, and it was estimated
thatnOf fewer than 10000 to % 900 starving people
Were wandering about the capital at Mullick
that when the Bombay merchants raised~a fund
and distributed food, there was at one time 900
iamishing applicants crowded up. They were
described as placed i'll order upon space waiting
for the distribution. On one side nearly 1000
Hindoos, each witha leaf platter before him, were
scattered on the wet ground, hastily partaking Of
the scant meal they received.
On the other side were 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 long
ings the minute till their turn should come under
the shelter of the ghot, crowded with women
and girls and children. Outside the gates
were hundreds and hundreds who had lost their
chance till the next distribution. Over all these
was horrible dead silence; no chateriug or con
versation hardly a sound excepting when at in. |
tervais some wretch threw up his arms with an
ejaculation to heaven, wrung from him by the un-
appeasing pangs of hunger.
More than this, officials wrote home descriptions
Of meeting dead bodies in every morning ride: |
bodies lying in the road, with the village dogs
eating them at leisure.
A Calcutta journal stated that in Bazatore. hay- |
ing population of l2,000 the deaths amounted |
to three hundred day, and on the government
demanding of its officials a report against the |
libel, the collector of the district replied that on
the eth Of August he had two hundred and forty.
five deaths on the city, and on the 9th one hun.
dred and twenty-six a day, the bodies sometimes
remaining unbured for three days. The province
Of oFsa suffered the most severely, one paper de-
claring that 100000 souls have persisted in mari I
time Orisa alone. Indeed a telegram from India
thathalf the population Of Orisi have
perished in the fomine-that is fully two millions |
and half of people