The weekly Union times. [volume] (Union C.H., South Carolina) 1871-1894, 1879-03-07
UNION G. H., soUrH CAROLINA, MARCH :. 1s7e.

perhaps, threw a handful of earth over
them, but for the most part each as too
busy with his own safety to care for others.
So our human brothers died
ONE HUNDRED AND Fl FTy THOUSAND VIC
TINS.
The greatest mortality from hunger wa,
probably in March; from February i to
| May l, when the exodus was taking place
can hardly calculate the number of fam
inc deaths at less than one hundred thousand,
and during tho whole drought probably
one hundred and fifty thousand died of
hunger 1-sheald add thsr my calculations
are much lower than those of other persons :;
some place the entire number as high as
three hundred thousand. In Aracaty the
death rate fuctuated between ninety and
one hundred aud ten a day; in Fortalcza it
was less at this time, but eighty per day
was bad enough. l have notices of ten,
twenty or more daily deaths in small villa
ges, and everywhere along the roadsidcs
nameless crosses still tell the story of uncat-
alogued victims. Dark tales of caunibal-
ism begiu to appear. From a letter writ
ten at Quicxcramobim translate as fol-
lows:
81 write in haste Have no. tune to
traDscrbe the scene of horror about me
1t is enough to give you as a specimen one
nameless crime A father, whose nature
was so overcome by hunger that he killed
and cooked in pot his little child, two
years old. This took place in California, a
settlement near Quixada The father died
,If
or four similar stories, very well authcnti-
Gated. | believe that these and other
cases of cannibalism were caused by insaui
ty-a common result of hunger"
Iquote also, letter from Jaguaribe-
Mirim, one ofmany that tell the same story ::
This villgec is full of abandoned Children !;
the despairing fathers would no longer see
them torn by the moster hunger. This very
day, while was eating dinner, my house
was invaded by crowd of these wretched
children, very skeletons, who could hardly
speak. Some Of them were so weak that
they would take onl v soup, obstinately re-
fusing more solit food. The road from
here to Aracaty is full of bodies You can
count the crosses by hundreds. The other
day, in on. ssAand s.,zxsAs- Sss:fr,
| isatd iiveSo6difes of 'fe7dg ICES, f55r children
and one old woman. BY the bodies there
over the ashes of an extiuguished fire
a dog, the faithful friend of the family,
was still watching them. Near Lettrado
three young girls and an old man were
found eating the flesh Of dead horse
which lay by the roadside This was Il
family from Loaras. Even in the villages
these poor wretches no longer ask for man.
dioca meal they ask for cats and dogs to
eat. (This is no cxaggeration. One
shopkeeper told ne of a refugee who asked
permission to kill the rats about his place
| Three days ago | made a journey of six
leagues by the road from leo, and what |
saw was lndcscribable. | found eleven
dead bodies by the roadside and at least
forty who were dying. Happily there is no
pestilcuce here the deaths ere from hun
ger"
From the first, both public and private
charity made the terrible mistake of giving
food without returns, leaving the people in
idlcness. The result was inevitable Af.
ter "a few weeks the peasants settled into
condition Of easy mendicancy and idlencss
would not work when they could. They
lay all day IN their filthy huts, drew their
rations and cooked them, grew fat but not
healthy, for their laziucss made them fit
food for disease.
THE FILTHY REFUGEES EMIGRATE.
I For those that wished to cmigratc the
government paid deck passage. in the
early part Of 1878 especially the number
Of these emigrants was very great-as
many as l 900 on one steamer They took
passage generally to Para, sometimes to
Maranham, pcrnanbuco OF Rio. Packed
in dirty crowds on the vessel, offensive
even to the sailors, by their flthiness, and
often poorly supplied with food, they Jared
badly enough. In more than one instance
the smallpox appeared among them on the
voyage, aud then they died like vermin and
were thrown into the sea. Probably fifty
thousand emigrants left Ceara. They were
received kindly enough in the other prov
inces, though their needs were not always
promptly met. But for the most part they
would not work; their mendicant habits
were now so confirmed that they would
on!y beg or starvc So they nursed their
misery long after people had ceased to pity
them. The neat Para peasants Gespised
fham hocf bo,