The Wichita daily eagle., 1891-11-21

anu Oh d hlSsldN Winter at OndD-WnlcA
means a terrible aggravation of the present
horrible state of affairs. Nor is there any
prospect of any improvement, even next
year. For If the peasantry have nothing
with which to satisfy the cravings of their
| hunger, they necessarily possess still less
the wherewithal to SOW for next years
crops. The condition of Russia next year
is logically bound therefore to be infinitely
worse than at present. The harvest of 1892
will be still more complete a failure than
that of 1891, since the area of land sowD
and put under cultivation will be i'm
measurably smaller, and what with yet
further augmented and aggravated famine,
together with cold and pestilenoN Russia
next year bids fair to become not merely q
blot upon modern civilization, for that dis
tinction she has already achieved, but the
charnel house of the Old World.
1t is asserted that Prince Donduroff-
Korsakoff and many other members of the
nobility at st. Petersburg have, with the
object of giving an example of self denial,
I adopted the so called famine loaf for use
on their own tables. But, according to
the private letters which | receive from
-he banks of the Neva. It's use is merely OF
a spectacular character. IL IS placed Oh.
the tables of the nobility, it is true, but it
is not eaten. Nor can one blame them;
for it is the reverse of appetizing, its prin-
cipal ingredients being the koosefort or
goosefoot plant-which is catalogued in
the Russian pharmacopoeia as an emetic-
and animal dung. These are baked into
hard, black mass like stone, and it is for
the sake of obtaining loaf thereof for
their starving children that mothers are
selling themselves, that men are cutting
each others throats and that every con-
ceivable form of crime, murder and rob-
berry is being committed. A sample of
this bread, which, according to official
reports, forms the sole sustenance of no
less than 10000, 600 men, women and chill
dren, is exhibited in the great cathedral at
Kazan with the object Of stimulating char
ity. But charity stands paralyzed and
powerless in the presence of famine of
such magnitude, and the sums doled out
to the peasants in some few of the more
fortunate districts have proved altogether
insufficient to purchase any adequate
amount of food at its present famine
prices.
While in the act of concluding this let
ter news reaches me to the effect that
bovine typhus has broken out in several of
the provinces, and that in the once fertile
and prosperous Soogorwsky district the
starving peasants have attacked and Sc
verely injured the veterinary surgeons and
government officials sent to destroy the
carcasses of the cattle which had sue
cumbed to the disease. The only parallel
to this that I can think of occurred in
Egypt during the famine of 1883 famine
attributable to the fact that the war of
1882 had prevented the ordinary area of
land being cultivated and sown. In sew
eral cases that came under my notice in
the month of August, 1888, the starving
fellaheen were found to have dug up the
carcasses of cattle that had succumbed to
bovine typhus, and which had been buried
several days previously by the health Off
cials. Notwithstanding that the meat was
black with disease and putrefaction, the
poor, wretched peasants, who bear a strik-
ing analogy in many respects to the Rus
sian moujlks, eagerly devoured it.
A few weeks later Asiatic cholera was
raging throughout the Delta, and partic-
ularly observed that the epidemic was the
most virulent precisely in these villages
and districts where most cattle had died
of bovine typhus. An outbreak of cholera
throughout the twenty famine stricken
provinces of Russia may therefore conf
IDENTIFY be expected to be heard of within
the next few weeks. For aught we know
it may already have commenced its raw
ages, for observe that the official govern
ment reports issued at st. Petersburg
admit that the peasants are dying by
thousands" and so fast that it is impos-
sible to bury them with religious rites, of
an epidemic which is guardedly described
as disease" In all probability it is
Asiatic cholera.
AN EX-DIPLOMATIST.