Daily press and Dakotaian. [volume] (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1875-1880, 1877-09-05

uWS V00WWE ~ WVUVA ]
AssssGy Feared, ssA ChtjAr~. Sold sss .
k0pse Each.
Whitehall Review, Ans u.
have this week received from the iamine
districts ~ India letters describing the pre-.
else state OF sfrsiss. My correspondents
narrative deserves TO he read carefully. for
II II from the pen Of an eye witness Of the
terrible scenes now being enacted In the
famine stricken country. In bis first letter,
dent says: I'VE have he'd no rain since ]
last wrote. and unless II falls within the
next four or five days the crops due In Sep
tember will perish, o. they did last year.
snl there will be another year Of scarcity.
Rice IA now selling at three and . half
measures the rupee, cholmer at 4 and grain
AZ measures the rupee. have TO buy
grass daily for M horse, and keep II under
lock and key then the horse-keepers are
20 hungry that they steal the grain to make
soup. 10 tact, every one is hungry and ~.
eryihing is abominable dear, and. unless
rain comes, there will. I fear, be q reign of
anarchy abroad soon. Crime, of course is
fearfully heavy. Besides having hundreds
logged, our Jail still has ] ,09O prisoners, the
average at ordinary times being l20. Mr..
and Mrs. - have gone out on a six weeks
tour, their carts drawn by coolics-no bull.
locks to be had for love or money. Child.
rem have been and still are being sold for a
rupee OF two the police have rescued some
twenty-five. Some women go about steal
ing the little wretches aud then sell them.
They 20 of by carts to Hyderabad, where
they are finally disposed Of" Writing on
the 18th of July, be adds: THE season
promises L be as disastrous as that Of 1876
in fact, must be far worse. There is no
rain. and sl hope Of our having any crop
in September Is now over. IL we get any
northeast monsoons in October there will
be = crop in some portions Of the district in
January. In the meanwhile prices have
risen, and rice is now selling at two and
one half measures the rupee Il think rice
used 10 be sixteen measures the rupee);
cholmer, three aud n half; grain, four aud
one.half (grain was thirty measures the ru-
pee eighteen months ago.) Every one feels
that the state Of the country 10 most critical
We have aeyeral thousand tons OF govern,
ment grain stored here, and / expect, unless
it Is soon thrown into the market. that
many of the middle classes Of natives must
starve; one man by himself, leaving the In.
variably large family Of hangers-on out OF
the question, can barely subsist on less than
fifteen rupees . month lat ordinary times q
family Of seven or eight can and do live on
eight rupees per mensem) at the present
market rates. Travelling expenses are awful
(when I left we hired bullocks for travelling
at twenty-five rupees per month y you can
not get a pair Of bullocks for sixty rupees
q month. The feet is. there is nothing for
the animals TO eat. The mortality among
cattle has been great, but 1t will be infinite.
" greater; all last year they contrived to
keep some alive on the coarse h!ll.grass oil
the Nullamullahs. That is now exhausted,
and what the next move will be, God only
knows. l fancy We must have either q
railway or . tram laid down from Gooty
station (sixty miles, } the transport Of grain
from thence to Kurnool will otherwise be
impossible. l can bother you no more with
oil these PARTICULARS. but can assure you that
owing 10 the failure of this second year Of
our annual rain, the results are likely TO be
may, must, in the opinion Of al. be-cal
amitous in the extreme; there is not thu
slightest e%xaggerntion about this, Mr.. -
the government astronomer, foretold q sec
ond year of drought for southern India, ant
his ~prophesies seem O. if they were abuu
to be realized