The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1877-11-08
The Famine and the Work Of Relief
I'm India.

| &AAO 4 0uA1uO anu tMC VOIA VI EA41At
in India.
The Rev. Lorin S. Gates, graduate o
Williams College, inthe class Of 1871, ant
engaged as Missionary of the Ameri
can Board at Sholapoor, India. writes
in private letter to a friend, undeI
date Of Sept. 6, some interesting par
ticularsof the awfulvisitation of famine
and the work of relief He says:
| We are in the midst of the famine.
stricken district, and are realizing, as
We never could elsewhere. what fam.
inc is All last year we had no rain to
speak OF over a large part of India.
The crops failed almost entirely in this
region and in the country south of us.
The people never think Of laying up q
cent for "a rainy day "a dry day),
and when the crops do not come in
time they are compelled to leave their
fields and seek food--they know not
where. Grain is now about
six times its usual value, and this for a
poor people is bad; but this is not so
bad as the fact that nobody can get
work, and hence there are no wages.
In this extremity, the Government has
opened ..relief works. building roads,
tanks. artificial lakes, railroads, etc..
in order to keep the people at work.
Yet, with all this, there are hundreds
dying every day of starvation, and will
for some months to come-say till
about January. Then the principal
crop of the year will be ripe, and the
people will have food, provided the rain
does not fail.
There are now people here from near
ly every village within forty miles.
Water has been plenty, owing to the
wisdom of an engineer in building a
large artificial lake. Thousands of
these people are fed daily here, and yet
it is impossible to reach all of the starv-
ing ones. We feed from 800 to 400 per-
sons in our yard every day. Many of
these are children, unable to work.
Parents have turned off their children
to care for themselves. Husbands have
(among the poor) almost invariably
turned away their wives, and mothers
are trying to sell and give away their
children. Almost every day children
are brought here for us to take. One
woman came with child about four
days old and said if we did not take
the child she would kill it. We took
mother and child and cared for them as
best we could, but the mother finally
killed the child by refusing to nurse it,
She had become almost insane with the
thought of supporting the child in such
a time as this. A few days ago, little
girl about three years old was found
lying on our verandah. We asked her
where she came from, and she said her
mother brought her in sight of the
house and told her to come here and
she would find a mother, and she has.
This shows how the people are suffer-
ing, for mother parts with her child |
only as last resort. Many persons have
come here with their children and |
asked us to keep them for few weeks,
while they went to the relief works.
and it is encouraging to see how the
people trust us now. We |
ind about 500 persons in our yard ev-
ery morning. We select the most |
needy and set them one side, for there
Ire many who try to impose on us, and
who have means of support. We boil
ice, about two bushels day, and give
With bread to the needy ones The
Government authorities give us 100 ma
ZACH child piece, which serves as
,late on which to put the rice. The
caves are about as large in diameter as
! dinner-plate and little thicker
Many children are so wasted away with
munger that they are actually living
skeletons. Many were so far gone
when came that they will never recov-
II. A rev days ago | found three per-
sons within an hour in different parts
If the fields near by all speechless and
nearly gone with starvation. There is
\ detachment of police whose duty it
IS to pick up the dead bodies that are
found about the streets. From seven
teen to twenty-five are reported at the
police Office as picked up every day.
This does not include the large num-
bers who die daily in the poor-house
and hospitals. We are contemplating
building house for orphans. Many
are now on our hands, and we have no
place but carriage or horse-shed to
keep them in.
Yesterday Mussulman came to me
to be baptized. After inquiring his
motives, i found it was only because he
we would take better care of
him # he was in the Church. The ma
tives have often accused us OF buying
But now we could getmany
of them for few pice, and j
hope the famine will have the effect OF
stopping that accusation.
have spoken of the famine as it is and
has been for the past few months. Now
the prospects are more favorable. Rain
has fallen, and is falling copiously in
many parts of India, and if this con-
tinues for a few weeks the crops will
be sown, and we may hope for good
harvests The people in this region
SOW two crops year; in the month OF
June they sow what are called the
small grains, and in October the other
wheat, barley, and other grains
peculiar to the country. These last
ripen in January, and if we have good
rains for. the next few weeks until these
grains are started the famine will be
very much relieved. But sthe famine
has killed the bullocks, SO that there
are very few to till the ground with,
and consequently much less grain will
be raised this year than usual. The
famine has been so extensive that grain
will be much higher than usual for
some years, fcar.-B0stof, journal.