Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1872-07-10
A FamIsbed People.


1t is pitilul story that came by cable last
week that the famine 10 Persia is still as bad
as ever. A liberal hand ought to be out.
stretched from the graoaries Of our productive
land for the relief Of these starving people.
A writer in lions HeraH gives a graphic
picture of the horrors of such an Eastern fam
inc as is raging in Persia to-day;
The details Of such terrible visitation are he
You'd human sketching. Food becomes scarce and
costly. The puor have no longer money with
which to procure IT, Brass and irin pts are sold,
oarthen ones alone being retained doors and win
dow frames are removed and snli for flnd, which
is doed out in mnuthfuls 10 the household. The
play Of children ceases ut the HEARTH the noise Of
joy is hushed in the village. Everything is sold
for grain the hark Of trees, pieces of old leather,
fruits, roots, are all consumed. Now fathers
barter their children. and wives abandon their
husbands for bread the village is deserted, and
the roads lined with men and children flying for
relief Wasted b shadows. worn out with anx-
iety, they tUtter along, or TALL on the highway.
Skeleton dogs gnaw the skin from skeleton men
ere they dead, in full sight Of crDwdS ton stOd,
ton Indifferent too weak, or too near death them
selves to do ought To interfere with the carnival.
Pcstilence iilllws in the train, and the stencil
from acres on acres Of unbured bodies. attracts
the yuture and the jaekal. All animated lie
so1n shares the calamity the cattle are dead or
dying the very fish perish in the beds of the
shrunkcn river, and the official report Of the fam
inc in Marwar, made 70 the British Government,
now lying before me- says MT only the deer and
the ackul, but the very held-rats died OF starva-
tion. Agriculture. the arts, trade, manufactures
all ayocatiuns arc abandoned. labr is para
yzed. Seed for future crops is unprncumhe,
and the few survivors are without ambition, A.
they are without solace. In their generation they
will never he anything hut poverty sm'tten tolers,
aud the Inheritance of their children must he ON
ly one remove from their own desulatpn.
IL i frightiul to hear the yet more graphic
picture which uur missionaries sometimes depict
OF Isolated instances of poor wretches sitting on
their skeleton launches, craunohing blue mari,
which, with both hands they are barely able u
hold TO their wasted jaws of carts crowded with
skeleton children crawling over their fellows dead
in the same vehicle of the brute force which wa'
necessary, In making tulernbly equal distrbu
tun oi few grains uf liiod to Infatuated maSse'
of men, women, and children, andu much besid'
from which the very steel Of ones pen shrlnks
Oh, il is terrific We would that something
might he done for Persia in this hour OF desola
ton She has been bitter against our Christian
faith. She has given inspiration 10 all e1rts b
destroy Christianity in Asia but just because o
all this have we the greater opportunity to exhl
bit C ristian magnanimity and charity. WI
ought to arm our mss0naI les with this addition
nj manifestation of our Christian sympathies Ii
all conflicts, present or future with the nOrdes o
the green banner, Mussulman prejudice and big
otry ought To he strmed hy the recollection o
the heart caIe VI American, as well as BrLs
Christianity,