The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1877-02-23
The Famine In India.

A Calcutta telegram to the London
Times of the fourteenth of January SAYS:
The famine in the Deccan is assuming a
serious aspect. There is an entire failure
of the crops in one Bombay district
namely Sholapore. Two others-name-
ly, KaladOre and Dharwar,-are nearly
as i'll of. A partial failure involves Sc
we're distress in Khandish, Nassick,
Ahmednugger. POona, Satara and Bel
gaum. Large relief works are sanctioned.
About 287 900 people are on the relief
works in Bombay. The government is
net interfering with private trade, which
is pouring i'll large supplies of grain. The
total cost from loss Of revenue and from
expenditure on relief works in Bombay
will probably be over 92,000,000 sterling.
Matters are still worse in Madras. Both
the southwest and northeast monsoon
have failed, thus causing famine in
twelve districts. Large relief works
have been commenced which employ
over one million persons. Beside these,
many are receiving charitable relief
Probably the cost to the state in Madras
presidency alone will be over e4,OO0,000
sterling. There is also considerable dis
tress in Mysore, and the southern portion
of the Fizam's dominion.
The area of this territory, exclusive of
native states, comprises about $4,000
square miles, and the total population
amounts to 5000, 900, of which 5, 100000
are reported to be included in the tracts
Immediately affected. Such being the
case, beth governments have organized
with great activity relief works. Large
gangs have been employed in making
roads, digging wells, and constructing
and clearing tanks. Greater works, such
as railroads and canals, are in cOntempla-
ton, and should necessity arise, they
will be undertaken. By the last accounts
the very large number of $40, 900 men
are reported as employed on the relief
works of Madras and $4,000 on those of
Bombay.
The government is striving to turn the
vast amount of unemployed labor to per-
manent uses. India is poor country,
not only because much of its soil cannot
be made profitable by the rude appli-
ances of native husbandry. but also be-
cause it is badly supplied with railways,
or even roads; and above all, because no
sufficient provision has been made against
the periodical drOuths. Much of it
might be made like garden if the water
brought by the rainy season were stored
in a net work Of canals TO await the next
time of scarcity. The value Of such a
system may be estimated from a single
fact which DR.. Hunter mentions in his
account of Orissa. In l870-71 an un- |
finished canal in that province sufficed !
to irrigate 100000 acres, and thus TO |
raise 100000 hundred weight Of rice. |
Duling the famine of 1866 all the re-
'ources of the government were unable, |
as we have said, to provide the people |
with more than 175, ,060 hundred weight. |
Had the canal existed in the time of the |
famine it might have saved two or three
hundred thousand lives"
If the natives had the energy of Euro
peans, they would go long distances and |
organize means of their own to get grain; !
but they seemed to lose all powers of self |
lelp. and to have only a languid wish |
Tor life when stricken down by those ter
-ible agencies of destruction which nature |
lets loose on India.