The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-08-07

found soup kitchens giving din
nsrs at 215 cents meal, and such kitchens
are now established in all the towns.
Think of feeding man on go or 10 cents a
month and you get an idea OF how these
people have been living during the past
winter. This gave them rye bread and
water with a meal of cabbage soup, and in
some of the districts they did not even
have this. In parts of this province of
Samara they made a bread Of dried grass
mixed with little bit of rye, and | have
seen specimens of this. The same sort of
bread was made in kazan and Niini-Nov-
gorod. A decent American horse would
turn up its nose at ii. IN parts OF Saratov
the dead cattle and horses were made into
soup, and at one place 200 gallons of water,
forty pounds of rye and q hind quarter OF
dead horse formed the materials out of
which the soup for the village was made.
Near Nijui there were instances OF chill
uren biting their arms and fingers TO sat
isfy their hunger, but | have so far heard
OF no case of canni0alism, though such
things have been reported. The most OF
the deaths from the famine have been
from typhas and disease, but considering
the vast number of destitute, ranging from
30, 100000 to 4000O,0O0 the mortality
has been comparatively small and much
less than it would have been among any
other people of the world. The diet of the
Russian peasant in the lest of times con-
sists of little more than cabbage soup, rye
bread and potatoes. He gets fat on pump
kins and cucumbers and knows but little of
meat. He has now and then piece Of dry
fish and his religion gives him many fast
days, when he does not dare to drink milk
or eat butter
THE GOVERNMENT WORKS.
see everywhere tue work of the Rus
sian government in behalf of the famine
sufferers. do not think that the machiu-
cry of the car in managing his people is
by any means perfect | think, in fact, it
is far from being so, and there is probably
as much oppression and corruption going
on in the government here as in any gov
ernment in christendom. Still, believe in
giving the Russians credit for the good
they are doing and for the millions they
are spending to help the people. In Mini :
Novgorod. where l first struck the Volge,
found about 5000 men at work widening
the roads and laying out public parks IN
der the government surveyors, and | was
told That their wages came out
OF the government appropriation for
the famine. Along the Volga at this
point the road that runs below the city OF
! Mini is about thirty feet wide. Ii is being
widened 10 about l9J feet and the hills are
being chopped down and substantial walls
built. These thousands of workmen re-
ceive about % cents a day and support
| themselves. The streets of Mini were
packed full of men wanting work, and
found thousands sleeping and loatng along
the wharf under the blazing sun. Men
bareheaded and barelegged lay with their
faces upturned, sleeping on the cobble
stone street next the river at midday, and
women with bags on their backs and stats
in their hands wandered through the
streets asking aims. Here and there
I aiong the road were bread peddlers, who
sold big loaves of BLOCK bread as large as 3
dishpan to such as could buy. Every loaf
sold was weighed frat, Snd parts OF loaves
were sold at so much q pound. III company
with the architect OF the government
visited the relief works and watched the
men a their labors. They worked as hard
as any labnrers l have ever seen and
when / asked as to the hours they put in
for 70 cents a day, was told that the day
was the usual Russian laboring day during
the summer s'And what was thisg'
asked From o'clock in the morning
until o'clock at night" was the reply.
THAT seems to me TO be a very long
J day. aaid |.