Connecticut western news., 1874-10-23
4@aHUNGERINGT TO DEATH
The Horrors of the Pre~AiIing Famine
 i'm Asia Minor.

The Horrors of the Pre~AiIing Famine
 I'm Asia Minor.
 The famine prevailing in the central portion of Asia Minor is reported as unabated.
 Gable dispatches like the above are frequent, but they give no complete idea of the terrible truth. The area of country covered by the famine is about that of the State of New York. The inhabitants in great numbers are dyinp of starvation and of the diseases which result from the lack of nourishing food, It is estimated that already as many as 150, ,O00 have died, Every day adds new victims, while crowds on crowds of pale, emaciated, staggering men, women and children are pouring into adjacent cities and towns begging for bread. The section is thus described by MT. Farnworth If any one would take g map of Asia Minor and draw a Iiue from Angora to Conia, Iconium, on the west, and'from Conia to Nigdeh on the south, thence to Tocat on the east, and then back again to Angora on thenorth, one will have the limits, comprising 40 to 50 square miles, within which the utmost severity of the famine is felt. This region might formerly have been called very garden for it's fruitfulness. Even under imperfect uAsiatic agricul- ture, crops of grain were secured suffi- cient for all the wants of the popula- tion and large exportation.
 Last year, 1873, through the failure of the usual rains these crops were al- most entirely cut of, and the whole population shut up to the very limited stores remaining from former years. The stores moreover were heavily drawn upon by the exporting merchants to meet contracts they had made to sup ply customers in foreign markets. Up on all this followed Ea winter of very unusual length and severity.S Before 1t passed the famine had begun. The poor peasants were eating up the little grain they had reserved for seed, and were selling their few household uten- sils for food. Their cattle were dying of cold and starvation. All eyes were turned toward the summer and the harvest of 1874, but this, too, has in great measure failed, not so much from lack of rain, as from lack of seed. to SOW, of cattle to work in the fields, and from lack of strength and heart on the part of the famished people. An American missionary, who has recently made an extensive tour in. the region, estimates that less than one- quarter of the usual area has been sown, and that this years harvest will bring scarcely any relief to the suffering already so fearfully great.
 " The Rev. 0. E. P. Bush, of the Bible House, says that whole columns might be filled with narrowing tales of suffer- ing; of villages where the people were living upon such wild herbs as they could gather in the fields and along the roadside; of little children left alone to die in deserted houses; of troops of hungry men and women wandering from place to place vainly seeking for bread and falling dead by the way, and their bodies left unburied for, days 8 prey to the famished dogs. Mir. Earns worth reports that in the regions he visited the focks and herds are almost entirely cut off. In one village, "out of ], 600 sheep and goats inst onesheep and one goat remain and of 100 COWS " from flock of I,,206 sheep ana goats eight are reported and from another flock in the same village numbering 800, of which zoo are mohair goats, the same mum Der eight is reportedP In mul ltitudes- of cases the poor have sold everything they had, even to the tim bers of their houses and the garments that covered them, to buy bread at the exhorbitantIp Ipxice at which alone.it can be obtained. Asa metter of ooufse, almost tho whole popuistfon is den1or- alized {; the regular pursuits of industry are disturbed and broken up, and fail ing to find honest employment men re- sort to violence and brigandage on the