The San Francisco call., 1896-11-22
MISERY SUPREME IN INDIA.
Missionaries Write About the Havoc
Wrought by the Famine and
the PjaUue

BOSTON, MASS, Nov 21.-The Ameri-
can Board of Foreign Missions has re-
ceived the following letter from Rev. R. A.
Hume, D. D., dated at Ahmednagar, India
October 16, 1896:
81 am Just entering upon my twenty
third year of missionary service in India.
In these years have been through many
perplexities, but the end of the twenty
second year finds me in greater pecuniary
embarrassment than ever before in my
life. Many is the day that there is not a
dollar in the house for the personal ex-
penses or for old, established. fruitful
work, or for our theological seminary, nor
any idea of where dollar is to come from.
And in the twenty-third year there seems
the almost certain prospect of the keenest
and most trying suffering and perplexity,
caused by wldes pread famine.
THE Indian weather bureau foretold an
inadeqate rainy season this year. The re-
suit is as foretold. From the Himalayas
to Cape Comorln the rainy season has been
inadequate. In this (Ahmednagar dis.
tric0 the early rain in June and July was
good. But since July there has been no
rain, and now the prospect is for eight
months more no rain will fall. In conse-
quence the first crops have not properly
ripened, and for want of later rains the
second crops cannot be even sowed in most
places unless there are wells to be de-
pended on. Even the water supply is
now low. What will it be a few months
hence?
II have been through one famine in In
dia and the recollection OF it is most sad
But that was not a general so much as a
comparatively local famine. The coming
famine seems likely to be very general for
nearly the whole population, with its
800, 100000 people. Already grain riots are
commencing. Grain merchants will no.
sell grain largely because they know the
price will greatly increase, though even
now prices are 300 per cent above normal.
So people break open grain shops and
granaries and threaten to kill the mer-
chants if they interfere. They say: 'We
shall have soon to die without doubt If
you interfere with our getting our bread
and we kill you in the struggle it will be
all the same
Similarly these people say to the po-
lice and courts: ARREST us stealing and
support us in jail. Then we shall not die
from starvation When quiet, orderly
people are aroused to such acts and words
you can imagine their present conditi n.
But this is only the beginning of our
trou bles.
IN more rain seems likely to fall for
eight full months, no seed can be sown for
eight and half months, and no grain
ripened for over ten months. What fear
full suffering seems to be in store AL
ready in some places parents are deserving
their children. In some places cattle are
being sold for the value of their hides. In
many places farmers forci bly, drive their
cattle into forest reserves and say to for
est officers: You may put these cattle
into pounds; then they will at least get
fed, but we shall not regard forest regula-
tons
"Y esterday morning near the gate of
Ahmednagar cart with grain was stopped
by hungry men, who held the driver till
some of them had carried off the grain.
For two days my servants tried in vain to
buy 50 cents worth of grain for use. If
they do this thing in the green tree, what
shall be done in the dry? The early part
OF October Is theoretically part of the
supply is most abundant now and the
crops are at their best"
The Rev. Edward Hume writes from
Bombay und date of October 10:
"You have doubtless heard through the
papers that Bombay is suffe ring from tue
pla ue. Yesterdays report shows that
during the past week there have been
nearly 800 deaths, or so per cent above the
normal for this time of the year. This
excess is due to the presence of the plague,
which the doctors technically call 'bubonic
fever The sysmptoms are swelling on
the neck, in the armpits and groins, ac-
companied by fever and vomiting, and the
patients present very noticeably sad and
demented appearance. In one case which
has been reported death took place after
an illness of twenty-five hours, but in
most cases the patients linger on tor two
or three days. At first the mortality was
very high, but the authorities assure us
that not more than go per cent of the cases
are iataL Even experts cannot tell us
whence the disease came nor what the
cause.'