The morning star and Catholic messenger., 1876-10-01
STARVATYON IN BULGARIA.
ANOTHER STARTLING PICTURE OF THE IIoR
RORs OF WAR.
{London Eaily News.}


But the dead are less to be pitied than
the living They have been reduced from
ease and comfort to the condition of wild
animals-wth0ut home, without shelter,
without bedding, almost without clothing,
and living on what food they can pick up
from day to day. There are women who
have known comfort, who are weak and Ill,
and who have three or four little mouths to
feed. They go sout in the fields, reap
enough wheat fer the days food, pain
fully enough thrssh it out with their bands,
pound it into flour between two stones, and
| bake it into bread for their little ones day
by day, and sleep, like the foxes, in the
corner Of a ruined wall on a little straw at
night. There are little children hero hag
gard and thin and sickly, sleeping almost
on the bare ground, and when it rains. Oh
the wet ground. Nobody who has not seen
it can imagine the misery caused by the
burning of village.
The authorities had sent some tents here
for the people which were old and ragged,
capable of sheltering from the sun, but not
| from the rain. But there were not enough
| for all. The mudir likewise received lit
tie food now and then, which he distribut-
| ed, which barely kept those who had no
| harvests or other means of existence from
! starving. But there was not enough, and
| the supply WAS uaHSrtain, and might cease
! at any moment. When we were starting,
the women and children gathered around
| us by the hundred, and blocked up the way.
| They showed us thin ragged clothing and
| said: See; we were rich; we had
house, and furniture, and cattle, and sheep,
and these rags are all we have left" They
barred their lean, skinny arms, to show us
their fearful emaciation ; they barred their
shrunken, shriveled breasts, at which 1ern
haggard, wretched babies were tugging, to
show us they had no milk. God knows,
| their hollow cheeks, and sunken eyes. and
despairing faces were proof enough. They
said " We are starving our bables are
Notwithstanding to death. Can you do
uothipg for usf" And We could no moth
ing nothing but shed useless tears.
And the Turks of the neighbOring viii
lagos, who have taken the borees and
sheen and cattle of these starving women and
children, tn, ir clothing and bedding, and
the tiles from their roofs, come to the viii
lape sometimes, and ride through on the
horses they have stolen, looking upon this
misery with Indifferent eyes. We saw sew.
eral here who had come out of mere curlos-
ity. we'll fed, fat, insolent, smiling their
contempt for the starving beings around
them. The Turk is not only without pity,
he ia without patriotism. He does not look
upon these people as his Deighbors, his
countrymen. He is too ignorant and stu
pid to know that in injuriDg them he Is
iniuripg himsef. that be is attacking his
own country. He knows no such thing as
country. lie knows only Islam. The peo.
pie of India, the Domadic tribes OF Central
Asia, whom he has never seen, OF whom ne
has heard once or twice perhaps in his life,
are nearer to him than his next door neigh
bors. The words country, patriotism, do
not exist in his language. That these
Christians, his near Deighbors, are his
countrymen, that on them as much as on
himself depend the greatness and prosper
ity of his country, is fact which has no
place in his mind, which has no influence
on his acts. He knows only that they form
no part of the religion of Mohammed, and
he looks no further.
When we left the village hundred OF
these women ran after us for mile with
their cries and lamentations. 1t seems they
thought at first we had come to bring them
food or succor of come kind, and when they
learned that we had only come to make an
inq uiry their disappointment was bitter and
overpoweriDg, and they sat down by the
wayside, with their little ones about them,
crying and wringing their hands, rocking
themselves to and fro, and moaning, rather
to themselves than for ns, What shall we
do What shall we do We are starving
We are starving! We are starvlng TO
| ~