Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1874-01-03

and soul together, and if they had the
chance of earning more they would prefer
to contract their time of work to providing
any surplus against day OF possible mis-
| fortune. One line of railroad touches part
of the district, but as a means OF bringing
food to mitigate the famine that already
stares the people in the face, it is all but
useless. For the country is as iamentably
destitute of good roads as it is OF canals or
widely-extended water-courscs, and the
commissariat services OF hall dozen
great armies would utterly break down
were they suddenly called upon to feed the
millions who will shortly be reduced to
starvation point throughout that parched
and stricken land.
These points afford only very mad
eouate outline of the preliminary con-
ditons of the Bengal famine. What the
state of things will be if the famine fairly
gets beyond the reach of the machinery
of relief which is being devised to arrest
it, defies all attempts to imagine. OBJ
servers describe the past experience OF
such visitations to be accompanied by
sacrifice of life in comparison with which
the slaughter of desolating war is trifle;
Hundreds of thousands of emacated
wretches drop down and rot like sheep;
the highways are strewn with corpses, and
the river brings them down like the debris
of an inundation. In all its features-ln
the perfect helplessness of the people, the
brazen sun and the iron bound earth, the
superstition that compels multitudes to
starve rather than save their Lille at the
sacrifice of caste, and the horrible eifacing
of all the decencies of life and of death
an Indian famine is the most fearful OF all
the evils that affect mankind
The latest news from the parched dis
trict is to the effect that all the old rice
will be consumed by the end of the year,
and that the miserable harvest of the new
crop will last only till March. After that,
ali the imports which can reach Bengal
will not suffice, "unless American maize
and wheat be attracted" 1t certainly
proves that modern science has not quite
subdued space yet, when the western
farmer finds corn the cheapest kind OF
fuel, while the famished millions OF the
Valley of the Ganges are in danger OF dy-
inc for want of it. The Indian Govern
ment has got II task of enormous magni-
tude before it, and qualified judges IN
Great Britain seem to doubt whether they
are sufficiently prepared to meet the adj
vance of the terrible foe that threatens to
lay waste several provinces. Sir Bartle
Frrerc estimates the difficulties of the In
dian famine to be five times as great as
those which had te be met in Ireland in
1867. The Parliamentary grants alone
awarded for Irish relief amounted to
$50, 100000. The pecuniary magnitude
of the problem may be partially measured
by multiplying this by five.
Money enough will doubtless be had,
but all the other difficulties exist in about
the same added proportion. If the 'relief
works. of Ireland broke down, because
the starving laborers had not strength
enough to WELD ak or shovel, how much
more likely is this to be the case in Bengal,
where the mode of reaching the places
where work can be prosecuted is OF the
most toilsome and tedious description?
Then, while man is earning at Govern
ment works the pay or the rice with
which he is expected to support his fam
| lily. the latter may starye during the time
required TO convey to them the needed
supplies. Altogether, the task is one Of
the most colossal and difficult that any
administration can be called upon to deal
with. In the past, the famine has al
ways proved stronger than all the means
which could be employed to fight it. 1t
is to be feared that it will prove SO again.