The Wadsworth dispatch. [volume] (Wadsworth, Nev.) 1892-1899, 1897-02-17
A8EnzdH5eNs
VIZ
FAMINES IN INDIA.
pscords of Some of the Most destructive
In Former Years.

In Former Years.
with al oyercrowded population Of
oOO. 600, coo CT peasants, whore annual
SIMPLY of food depends upon a rainfall
sntiect to decided irregularities ii ia
inevitable that India should suIel frem
,rooucnt and destructive famines. Mote-
~crolorical o~bservations have disclosed
no rule Of periodicity i'll these failures
of rainfall by which seasons of drought
ran be forecast with certainty. They
have, on the other hand, .r.abiished the
fact that the fall is new. either def
cient or excessive in any single year
throughout tie whole of India. There
Is thus always II reserve Of food supply
in some parts CT its area which may be
drawn uppu for use i'll the needy dis
tricts. 1t has been discovered, too, that
winters marked ly an excessive snow
fall in the. Himalayas are always fol
lowed by diminished summer rainfall,
generally in northern India, but some
time. i'll other portions of the great pen
insula. Apart from these few facts,
gathered within the past quarter Of a
century, there is little data from which
seasons of brought may be forecast,
though it is known that drought, once
begun, generally extends over two or
more years. The approach or scarcity
can be determined only in the year in
which it actually occurs, and by a sys-
TEN of observations beginning with the
T-.o ,,i,,foIl mud oOntiny.uD ,,pt,1 +Eo
autumn has made certain and INSULT
Gent supply for the winter crops.
Of the txtent Of the suffering from
drought and crop failure in the Asiatic
world western peoples have but a faint
conception. In the great droughts in
northern China in 1878 no less than
$500, 000 persons persisted, and although
during the present century, at least, NO
single famine in India has attained that
magnitude, it is estimated that in the
score Or more disasters Of the kind which
have occurred between 10, 900, 600 and
20, 900, 900 lives have been lost. That
which began i'll 1875 and eliminated i'll
1877 was the most prolonged and de-
structive, resulting i'll the death of
$500, 900 persons.
In 1866 a third of the population
of 3, 900, 600 starved to death in Orissa,
and in lS6S-70 about 1000, 900 died
from want in Rajputana. The famine of
1861 in the northwest provinces was a
huge calamity, and the Berar drought
Of 1874 was only prevented from be-
coming SO by lavish expenditure ON the
part of the Indian government. Prior
to the white conquest famines of i'm
mense dimensions devastated the PENN
sula, resulting occasionally in an appall.
ing defamation of the feebler classes CT
the population. These classes, number
ing approximately 40, 600, 900, are al
ways so near starvation that a season Of
drought reduces them at once to extrem.
tiles of hunger.
In the old days the devices for famine
relief in India were Of the usual Asiatic
sort. First, the shops Of the grain deal
ers were sacked and their owners muir
dered. When that failed, the offices of
the native governments were besieged,
and when the royal granaries were emp
tied the gods were propitiated with
sacrifices, ending with the slaughter of
human victims and the distribution of
their flesh over the barren fields. But
during the past 80 years these devices
have given way to remedial measures of
q moe practical and effective kind.
Taught by long experience, the govern
ment of India has elaborated a system
OF relief, machinelike in its operation,
capable of being put into effect at any
time and of adjustment to the needs of
any particular scarcity. The old notion
mat a government cannot be made re-
sponsible for deaths from starvation any
more thar for deaths by fever has dis
appeared. Every rural official is made
10 feel his responsibility and is minute
y instructed beforehand as to his par
ocular duty in each sage of scarcity.
rlrst' a system CT ~ forecasts gives
nonce OF the possible approach Of fam
me, When the Possibility becomes from
iur'ner reports a probability, the govern
ment begins active preparations 10 meet
IT. Its forecasts may not prove correct,
pu' IL acts at nee and cnerGcticallv,
showing that il it waits to verify its
es.inlates act on viii be too late to lie
enectual.--New Yorl, Observer.