Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1876-10-07
STARVATION IN BULGARIA.

Another Startling Picture of the Horrors
of WAr---Tho Utter Heartlessness of the
Turks.
But the dead are less to be pitied
than the living, says a London NeUs
correspondent writing from Bulgaria.
They have been reduced from ease and
comfort to the condition of wild ami
mals-without home, without shelter,
without bedding, almost without cloth
ing, and living on what food they can
pick up from day to day. There are
women here who have known comfort,
who are weak and i'll, and who have
three or four little mouths to feed. They
go out in the fields, reap enough wheat
for the days food, painfully thrash it
ont with their hands, pound it into
hour between two stones, and bake 1t
into bread for their little ones day by
day; and sleep, like the foxes, in the
corner of q ruined wall on a little straw
at night. There are little children here,
haggard and thin and sickly, sleeping al
most on the bare ground, and, when it
rains, on the wet ground. Nobody who
has not seen it can imagine the misery
caused by the burning of a village.
The authorities bad sent some tents
here for the people, which were old and
ragged, capable of sheltering them from
the sun, but not from the rain. But
there was not enough for all. The mu-
dir likewise received little food now
and then, which he distributed, which
barely kept those who had no harvests
or other means of existence from starry
ing. But there was not enough, and the
supply was uncertain and might cease at
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 lean, bag
gard, wretched babes were Juggling, t.
show us they had no milk. God knows,
their hollow cheeks and sunken eyes
and despairing faces were proof enough.
They said: eve are starving; oul
babes are starving -starving to death.
Can you do nothing for us9" And we
could do nothing; nothing but shed
useless tears.
And the Turks of the neighboring
villages, who have taken the horses and
sheep and cattle of these starving women
and children, their clothing and bedding,
and the tiles from their roofs, come to
the village sometimes, and ride through
on the horse they have stolen, looking
upon this misery with Indifferent eyes.
We saw several here who had come Out
Of mere curiosity, we'll fed, fat, insolent,
smiling their contempt for the starving
beings around them. The Turk is moi
only without pity, he is without patriot
ism. He does not look upon these peo
pie as his neighbors, his countrymen
He is too ignorant and stupid to know
that in injuring them he is injuring him
self, that he il attacking his own coun
try. He knows no such thing as coun
try. He knows only Islam. The people
of India, the nomadic tribes of centra
Asia, whom he has never seen, of whom
he has heard once or twice perhaps il
his life, are nearer to him than his mex
door neighbors. The words country
pdJTlOJlSul, IlO uOG eAlSG Ill llS lduB udS0
That these Christians, his near neigh
bors, are his countrymen, that on then
as mucha on himself depends the great
ness and prosperity of his country, is {
fact which has no place in his mind
which has no influence on bis acts. Ell
knows only that they form nopart of thu
religion of Mohammed, and he looks III
further.
When we left the village o hundred o
these women ran after us for milewitI
their cries and lamentations. 1t seem
they thought at first we had come t.
bring them food or succor of some kind
and when they learned that we had onl,
come to make an inquiry their disap
pointment was bitter and overpowering
and they sat down by the wayside, will
their little ones about them, crying ant
wringing their hands, rocking themselve
to and fro, and moaning, rather to them
selves than for us: "What shall we do
What shall we do2 We are starving
We are starving We are starving t.
death |"