The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1877-09-29
TFrorn the L.ondon guinea,

- Tie Clf4oo u ln4lA.
From the London Times.]
Madras, Aug. 8.-An Hindoos are
charitable by nature. Most families have
crowds of hungry hangers-on, even in
the best of times, but with this great
dearth the family burdens have been
greatly added to. In going through q
street of the more wealthy part Of the
town, it is common to see at almost
every house q number Of poor people
collected waiting for the daily dole Of
food, and in this way the native COM
munities of this and other towns have
been doing quietly and unostentati0usly
a great deal to help their poorer breth-
rem in the struggle for life.
But from all that can learn distress
is already reaching the class above the
very poor. With these there are caste
difficulties about getting food at the
regular relief houses, and many are
gradually starving before the pressure
becomes so great that they will leave
behind their pride and social prejudices
and join the common herd ut the Gov
eminent kitchens. With regard to the
town of Madras the local committees
are now making inquiries regarding the
numbers of the better classes who are in
want of relief, and this relief will be adj
ministered as far as possible in man.
ner consonant with the feelings and
usages of the classes we wish to benefit.
1t is certain that the destitution is very
real. Within stones throw of my own
house is native village tenanted by
servants of Europeans, small shop
keepers and others, and for some time
past my wife has been feeding few lit
tie starvelings belonging to this village
on bread and milk. These are not i'm
migrants, but children of our local poor,
and out of a dozen little things who
come every morning for their food, two
or three are SO far gone that they will
not be saved. If We fed all who wanted
help out of this small village, we should
have hundreds on the list.
As write there comes before me a
woman with two children, the woman
in the last stage of exhaustion, one child
at the breast, with the face like little
wizened old man, and its body a mere
skeleton, the other child a little girl of
five years of age, extremely emaciated
and feeble. With this family are two
girls, both miserably thin and famine
stricken, and with their strength quite
spent. They all Speak with voices that
are thin, and sounding as if far away,
just as happens in patients in the last
stage of cholera. A little warm soup
and bread and milk for the children re-
wives all of them in q wonderful way.
After a rest they get q meal of curry
and rice, and are sent off in cart
to relief camp. Standing at the
entrance gate of my house l can in
half an hour count hundreds of wretch
ed creatures who have hardly strength
enough left to drag their weary limbs
along. These are the houseless and
homeless wanderers from different vii
lagos, for whom the Government pro-
vides centers of relief; but the people
will not rest quietly and conserve their
energies. They drag themselves and
their feeble children about, wandering
from camp to camp, until the time
comes for them to lie down and die.
Death in the street is getting more fire.
quent. One day last week I saw small
crowd assembled near the Government
House. The people were gathered
round a famine family; one of whom, a
girl of seven, was dying of exhaustion.
The bystanders were trying to feed her
with milk and rice, but she could not
swallow. In Bangalore l hear that the
people die in the streets at the rate of
Is or 20 day, and the police in Madras
are reporting such cases of death as
common. There comes time in the
course of every famine when the people
affected by the scarcity of food can
neither exert themselves nor bear any
climatic changes without great peril to
life. Bodies enfeebled by long priva-
ton are very susceptible to fatigue and
weather changes. The last 10 days have
been a rainy time, and the mortality
among the famine camps has been high
er than ever.