The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1866-1891, 1878-09-05

tuouSauu Ur tut SuucilHR pooi Va
that city.
Florence Nightingale and the
Y Famine.
Miss Florence Nightingale's article in
the latest number of the Nineteenth
Century is especially interesting at this
time, when we hear q great deal about
the magical change for the better which
is certain to take place in the fortunes
of the inhabitants of Cyprus, now that
they have Sir Garnet Wolseley to rule
over them, ,36stead Of Turkish Pashas
of astounding rapacity. Miss Nightin-
gales picture of the people of India is a
terribly sad one, and her indictment of
the. EnglisbaG Governments bitter. Six
millions of persons died of famine last
year in Southern India. To English
miagovernment Miss Nightingale at
tributes this appalling calamity, the
extent Of WHICH we are entirely unable
to realize. She says: .
"These are figures, paper and print
to us. How can we realize what the
misery is of every one of those figures
a living s&a!. slowly starving to death! !
I have had photographs sent me Of FIVE
or six. An infant with precocious re-
signed eyesaef sufering-a living skel-
eton in its mothers skeleton arms; a
dying boy,a helpless old man, a man
stricken down in the prime of life. l
could not bear to look at them. l hid
them away, and would not publish
them. But, not five or six, but five or
six millions lay down thus to die, slowly
die of hunger and thirst, besides the
millions who were saved. And
when We realize that FIVE or six mill
lions have 30 died-that We count not
by fingers Of one hand, but by millions,
every finger a million-do we realjze
what it is to soy that many more mir
lions have 80 lived, been so saved, and
will live after the famine, going back
to their bare and rooaess homes, where
not q straw remains"
A sensible administration, 10 her be-
lief, would have prevented all this mis-
cry. She points out one or two provinces
which were not devastated simply be-
cause money enough had been expended
to cusure water for agricultural purposes.
As to the. people of India, they are
ignorant, but in her opinion of heroic
patience. The English cannot shift the
blame from their own shoulders on to
that of the Indians. On this point she
says:
"There is such an element of endur.
ance and heroism that, quite unknown
to our masters, during the greatest
starvation and the highest prices the
boarded grain remained in pits safe in
the earth-none betrayed the secret
hoarded, not to sell at the highest fam
inc prices, but for seed corn against auo-
ther failure ofcrop. And not till the
present cropASSe safe has it appeared
This was b Setter class of farmers:
What thrift: &aat endurance, have we
Westerns compared with this ? And
we in the West preach thrift to them.
The 'horse' literally Saved his one
straw day for his children's sowing.
And they call these people not thrifty.
It is the very heroism of thrift. Com
pare the people Of some Of Englald's
big town. with their drunkenness, thoir
vice and brutal crime, their reckless
waste and unthrift, with the industrious
people of India. Which is the highest,
even in the scale of civilization ? A
question not to be asked"
The criminal neglect Of England in
her treatment of India concerns, in her
opinion, three things:
IL. The great question of money
lending which overshadows all.
"2. Water: Ifw had given them
water, should We now have to bo giving
them bread? Water including irriga-
ton, cheap canal communication, i'm
proved methods of agriculture and for
est plantations
sa. Systems Of representation, by
which the people may virtually rate
themselves according to the surveys of
what is wanted, and spend the money
locally under the elected District Com
mitteo's orders; including municipali
ties, publicity, or some method of CIV
iug the people voice."
The money-lepding spoken of refers
to the outrageous interest which the na-
tive farmers are obliged to pay to their
creditors, by reason Of which nine.
tenths of them live 10 bondage as bad
as slavery. Judging from Miss Night
ipgale's Indictment, different measures
must be taken with Cyprus if We are to
see there the Utopia ofwhich so many
are now talking. At least
there can be no doubt as to the great re-
sponsibility which Lord BeaconsGeld's
brilliant foreign policy has imposed
upon Great Britain.-Ne,cs and Con-