The record-union., 1896-11-22
DeStitution and Starvation Staring the
People In the Face.
Parents in Some Places Deserving
Their Children.
A Plague Raging at Bombay, the
Deaths Averaging Nearly Eight
Hundred Per Week, the Patients
Lingering But Few Days After
Being Stricken With the Disease.

BOSTON (Mass.), Nov. H.-The
American Board of Foreign Missions
has received the following letter from
Rev. r. a. Hume, ID. D., dated Ahmed
nagar, India, October 16. 1896:
Il am just entering upon my twenty
third year of missionary service In In
dia. In these years have been through
many perplexities, but the end of the
twenty second year finds me in greater
pecuniary embarrassment than ever be-
fore in my life Many is the day that
there is not a dollar in the house for the
personal expenses 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
widespread famine.
The Indian Weather Bureau foretold
an inadequate rainy season this year.
The result is as foretold. From the
Himalayas to Cape Comorin the rainy
season has been inadequate. In this
| (AhmednagaT) district 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 consequence 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 viii it be a few months
hence?
Il have been Through one famine in
India, 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 popu-
lation, with its 800, 100000 people. AL
ready grain riots are commencing.
Grain merchants viii not sell grain
largely because they know the price will
greatly increase, though even now
prices are 800 per cent above normal.
So people break open grain shops and
granaries and threaten to kill the mer-
| chants IL they interfere. They say:
| We shall have soon to die without
doubt. If you interfere v ith our getting
our bread and we kill you in the strug
| gle 1t will be all the same
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
condition. But this is only the beginning
of our troubles.
mo more rain seems likely to fall for
eight full months, no seed can be sown
for eight and a half months, and no
grain ripened for over ten months.
What fearful suffering seems to be in
store? Already in some places parents
are deserting their children. In some
| places cattle are being sold for the'value
of their hides. In many places farmers
| forcibly drive their cattle into forest re-
serves and say to forest officers You
may put these cattle into pounds; then
| they will at least get fed. but we shall
not regard forest regulations.
| Yesterday morning near the gate of
! Ahmednagar a 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 fifty cents worth of
grain for use. If they do this thing in
eAiC Il OS N1AeiI NC AO1lC LII lAiS
| dry? The early part of October is theo-
retically a part of the rainy seaon; in
ordinary years our water supply is most
abundant now and crops are at their
best
The Rev Edward Hume writes from
Bombay under date of October 10TH
| You have doubtless heard through
the papers that Bombay is suffering
| from the plague. 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 doc
| tors technically call 'bubonic fever
/ The symptoms are swelling on the neck,
in the armpits and groins, accompanied
| by fever and vomiting, and the patients
present a very noticeable sad and de-
mented appearance. In one case which
has been reported death took place after
an Illness of twenty-five hours, but in
most cases the patients Hnger on for
two or three days. At first the mortal
/ ity was very high, but the authorities
assure us that not more than 90 per
cent. of the cases are fatal. Even ex-
perts cannot tell us whence the disease
came nor what the cause"
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