The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-01-25

Boston. Jan. 24-The American board
has received a group of letters from
/ its missionaries and correspondents in
India relating to the plague and fam
inc.
Rev E s Hume of Bombay. who
went to India in 1875. says: Things
/ have been going from bad to worse.
until the situation is most grave and
| even alarming.
"One-third of the population of the
city is said to have fled and multitudes
are still leaving.
"One of the railroads has put on six
extra trains a day. and hundreds
/ crowd about the municipal stations
waiting for an opportunity to get
away
AT first the plague was confined to
one ward of the city. but it has spread
from place to place until no Section
is free from the disease.
so also all classes of Europeans
have suffered from it.
The published reports have greats
underestimated the number of deaths,
which is probably not less than 200 or
800 a day.
THE native Christians have been
marvelously protected. Not one has
suffered from the plague.
1.-The bishop of Bombay has ap-
pointed a day for special prayer to be
observed by all of the Church of
England congregations and has invited
all other Christians to join with them.
This has been done none too soon.
HindOOs MOhammedans and others
have in their own way shown that they
recognize the hand of God in the af-
Fiction and know that deliverance
must come from a higher than human
power"
G. s. Eddy. one of the secretaries of
the students volunteer movement,
mingles an account of the effects of
the famine with a story OF the eff
fieiency and demands Of missionary
work. The letter is dated from Cal
cutta but refers to previous expert
ences in Bombay. He says:
Leaving the steamer we step into
a horse car and enter Bombay. a fine
city of nearly a million people.
The streets are thrOnged with dark
skinned natives. whose differing tur-
bans and dress indicate their religion
and caste Here we pass a group of
women beating their breasts TO a
dirge-the city plague has another vic
tim. From the busy street we enter
the missionary compound. with its low
stone buildings. After the warmest
welcome we ever received, we go TO
breakfast-just such a one as we
would have at home. As we leave
breakfast we notice a native woman
working quietly in the corner of the
hall The few pennies she is earning
keep her from starving IN these times
when her only food has been cold wa
ter At the door we pass a group of
swarthy men from the famine district
waiting to ask the missionary for
work. After helping them, we cross
the compound to the school. About 200
of the brightest faces one ever saw are
before us-the boys with their snap
ping bright eyes. the girls neatly
dressed in white. While we are singing
we are noting some of the more strik-
ing faces. That dark, wistful little girl
of was rescued from under blows.
Notice those few black faces, evidently
African, among the lighter Indian
brown. Those girls were captured
from a SLAYER The missionary rescued
them a second time from the Moham-
medans here, who almost had them
in their clutches. That fair Indian girl,
the beauty of whose character is writ
ten on her face, was brought here one
day by her heartbroken father. He
said: Ny wife has just died, and our
law requires that I turn my little girl
of out from under my own roof.
man at 40 has offered me 200 rupees
for her this morning. I cannot give
her TO him. for it Will mean her death.
Our priests are waiting at my door,
demanding my child for the degrad-
ing service of the temple. They shall
not have her, for 1 love her. All of
these years I have watched your
school girls pass my door, and I have
never seen an unhappy face. Someone
must love them. OH will you love
my little girl? It will cost me caste
and everything. but 1 give her to you
IF you could see the peaceful face
of this little girl and the filthy temple
priests at the temple, waiting for their
prey, like the vultures at the Parsee
burying ground, you would never ask
again if m ssions paid in sustaining
girls in this Christian boarding school.
rescued from filth and famine and vice
for s35 a year.
I'VE next visit low caste school