The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1877-09-04
THE FAMiN.EIN rsnIA,
Anarchy Feared, ,And Children sold for 8,
MIpee Each

"Apee Each,
Whitehall view, August 1871
l nave tEis week received from the
iainine olsSflcts OF India letters describ-
ing tne precise state OF affairs. My cor
respondents narrative deserves to he.
read carefully, for it is from the pen of
an eyewitness Of the terrible scenes
now being enacted In the famine stricken
country. In his first letter, written on
the 18th OF July, my correspondent saws !:
we have had no rain since I last
wrote, and unless it falls within the next.
lour or i've days the crops due in Sep
temper VIII perish, as they did last
year, and there will be another year Of
scarcity. Rice is now selling at 81
treasures the ruree, cholmer at and
buy grass daily for my horses. and keen
1t under lock and key; then the horse
keepers are 80 hungry that they steal
the grain to make soup. In fact. every
one is hungry and everything Is abom,
lnably dear, and, unless rain comes
there will, fear, be reign Of anarchy
abroad soon. Crime, of course, ia fear
FULLY heavy. Besides having hundreds
logged our jail still has 1920 prisoners.
the average at ordinary times being 800.
I Mr. and Mrs. - have gone out on a
SIX weeks tour, their carts drawn
by coolies-no bullocks TO be had for
love or money. Children have been
and still are being. sold for rupee or
two; the police have rescued some
twenty-five. Some women 90 about
stealing the little wretches and then sell
them. They go off by carts to Hyder-
abad, where they are finally disposed
OIL; writing ON the 18th of July, he
ADDS 1.-The season promises to be as
disastrous as that OF 1S76-in fact, must
fo
hope of our having any crop in Septem-
Der is now over. II we get any north
east monsoons in October there will be
crop in some portions of the districr
In January. In the meanwhile prices
have risen, and rice is now selling at
two and one-half measures the rupee
q think rice used to be sixteen meas
ures, the rupee; cholmer, three and
one,half; grain, four and one
half grain was thirty measures)
the rupee eighteen months ago.. Every
one feels that the state of the country il.
most critical; we have several thousand
tons OF government grain stored here.
ana expect, unless 1t is soon thrown
into the market, that many of the mid
die classes OF natives must starve: one
man by myself, leaving the invariably
large family of hangers-on out of the
question, can barely subsist on less than
nIteen rupees month (at ordinary
times family Of seven or eight can
and do live on eight rupees per men
semi at the present market rates,
travelling expenses are awful when
left we hired bullocks for travel
ing at twenty-five rupees per month";;
you cannot get pair OF bull
LOCKS for sixty rupees a month. The
TACT Is there is nothing for the animals
70 eat. The mortality among cattle has
been great, but it will be Infinitely
greater; all last year they contrived to
keep some alive on the coarse hill-grass
of the Nullamullahs. That is now ex
lausted, and what the next move will
De. God only knows. / fancy we must
1aye either a railway or q tram laid
Town from Gooty Station (sixty miles,,
ne transport Of grain from thence to
hurnool will otherwise be impossible.
can bother you no more with all these
PARTICULARS, but can assure you that.
wing to the failure OF this the second
,ear OF our annual rain, the results are
likely to be-nay, must, In the opinion
u all, be-calamitous in the extreme;
here is not the slightest exaggeration
bout this. Mr.. -, the government
,stronomer, foretold a second year OF
|rowth for Southern India, and his
'rophesies seem as If they were about to
10 realized"