Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1868-12-14
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what technical discussion on a question
of language (psges l57-l79), his book, as
q whole, is fascinating even to the gene
raj reader.
No historical picture could be more ef-
fectiye than that given by Mr.. Hunter Of
the great famine Of ITO in Bengal, by
which, as he clearly shows, 1.-THE failure
Of single crop, following year of scar
city, within nine months swept away ten
millions Of human beings" (psge 34),
one third Of total population as great as
that of the United States in 1860.
Neither the extent Of the calamity at the
time, nor the frightful inadequacy of the
measures adopted by the government to
meet and mitigate it, is made the text for
moralizing; but the appalling facts,
with their causes, skillfully and elabo-
ratey traced out, are presented with q.
feeling simplicity to which no reflections
could give emphasis After a vast
amount of discussion and confusion in
the matter of contributions by the State
to save the people from starvation, the
utmost that the council, when presented
by the court of directors as to govern
ment relief efforts. could show was dis
tribution of $4,000 among thirty millions
Of people, of whom six in every sixteen
were officially admitted to have perish
ed" (page 81, or one dollar and half
to help each thousand people through q
year Of famine.
The depopulation of Bengal by this
calamity was such as to change, for two
generations, the relations between labor
ers and landholders. Before the famine
land was scarce, and workmen so abun-
dant that "the whole peasantry fell into
the power of the landlords or revenue
farmers, and cry of rural oppression
arose such as has never been heard before
or after" page 59) But after it, vast
tracts of land lay waste; one-third of the
compapy's territories in Bengal became
q jungle inhabited only by wild beasts" i"
(page 6l,) merely for want of laborers to
till it; and laborers we're in such demand
that the non-residsnt ryots, sort of
agricultural journeymen, who had pre-
viously formed an Insignificant and del
graded order, continued during thirty
years the most prominent feature in the
rural system of Bengal" Page co.,
Nor were the effects of this famine less
upon the face of the country than upon
the system of labor. In the waste lands
wild beasts multiplied so rapidly that the
native population, who had no firearms,
often gave way before them. "In two
parishes alone, during the last few years
Of the native administration, ffty-six
villages with their communal lands had
all been destroyed and gone to jungle,
caused by the depredations of the wild
elephants" says an official report of the
year 1890 Page 66.) The introduc.
ton of railways, and the development of
O general system of trade, have made
such local pressure Of famine as that OF
ITO impossible anywhere in India, as
the interesting accounts here given of
later seasons of scarcity show (psges 81
and 56) At the same time the sport of
English hunters, and use of firearms by
the natives, have made the larger wild
beasts scarce. page I'll
There is nothing more interesting or
more valuable in the work than the ac-
count it gives of the relations between
the two races which occupy Bengal-the
black aborigines and their Aryan con-
querors. For many centRries they have
lived side by side, the former ignorant,
superstitious, enslaved laborers the
latter superior to them in mind and
body, to far greater degree, apparently,
than any race in Europe and America is
superior to another race upon the same
soil. To the millions of this strange
country the system of caste, commonly
regarded as the foundation of Hindoo
society, has no existence. The great
gulf between the couquerors and the
conqueror has never been bridged; and
the social distinctions that disgrace Hin
doc society are not distinctions between
various ranks of the same people, but
distinctions between the too two y
widely diverse and long hostile races"
page Ill