The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-07-10
THE FAMINE IN RUSSIA
PEOPLE ROTIING no DEJTH FROM
DISEASE AND EXIT UsTIOY.


Among the Non-christian People o,
Eastern Russia
II is not matter of famine. 1t is a
matter of whole provinces of neonla
SLOWLY rotting to death from disease and
exhaustion" Such was the opinion Civ
Ell TO me by retired Zemstvo doctor,
whose acquaintance / had made on the
little steamer which conveys passengers
from the railway terminus at Sviazsk TO
the kazan side of the Volga. was be-
ginning to feel disbelief in the existence
Oh any serious distress in the district
through which we passed. Nowhere was
there single trace of the conventional
signs of famine. For the last hundred
Versts from the frontier of the azan gov
eminent to the banks of the Volga we
mad passed through a great level plain
bounded by horizon as regular as the
horizon OF the sea, an immense garden of
Ilch black soil covered with the freshest
Oh green crops imaginable. That p5ople
could starve here was incredible. And
tAat they did not starve seemed proven.
Al every railway station along the line
were throngs of sturdy sun burned mu-
Jlks. good six inches taller than our
own peasants, leaning on their spades in
nelds or sleeping in the thrd-class re-
freshment-rooms in every agnabfe
position. Nowhere was a hungry face to
be seen. At SvaZsk. where the Volga
had risen higher than it has done for ten
years past, and laid the whole of the
low-lying country under water the same
signs Of prosperity continued. Even the
birds had not been forgotten, and scarce
ly hut, was passed without its long
pole and diminutive sheaf Of corn on top.
Nobody knew anything about the famine
in these parts. At Kazan they knew
less. And the government agents, who
came by railway and steamer and saw a
smiling country and a healthy, vigorous
population, went back to ST. Petersburg
and reported that the famine was exag-
gerated or that it did not exist at all.
The fact is, that wherever there is a
railway or navigable river there is no
famine. And where there is famine it
Is not to be seen from the village street.
All along the Volga, and by the side of
the Kazan railway the harvest Of 1898
failed just as utterly as it did in the re-
hottest parts of the government. But
the position of the people here was
known from the beginning, relief was or
ganized, and the peasants by the side of
a railway or of river are never wholly
dependent upon agriculture. The FAM
Inc existed nevertheless. In the govern
ment of Kazan not single drop of rain
fo1J 111r 11a wv
There was absolutely no harvest In
most places the crops were so short that
It was impossible to reap them. There
was no straw, and as the cattle are fed
chiefly upon straw there was no fodder.
The people had two failures of harvest |
The spring crops were ruined by the |
drought; the summer crops never came
up at all. The potatoes were killed by |
the early frost. Tt was this that caused |
the outbreak of scurvy, for the Tartars |
do not eat green vegetables, and from |
autumn onward lived on nothing but |
black bread mixed with berries, bark, |
leaves, goosefoot, bran and rotten fruit.
The horses and cattle disappeared In !
Simbirsk horses were sold at six rubles
a head, and in the spring had to be re-
bought at thirty-five rubles.
take it from me-" said my steamer ac-
quaintance, who had made a tour of in
vestigation through the country, that
not single peasant child born this year
in the government of Simbrsk will sur
vive. Most of them were born already
dead When they are born alive there is
nothing to feed them on Wood was
not to be had for heating purposes, and
the peasants ate their black bread, and
never tasted hot meal for months.
The matches were taken from the huts
to feed the cattle. When this was eX
hausted the cattle We're killed. The
horses had long been sold, and whole viii
lagos remained cut off from all commu
nication with the outside world. Then
the people began to die of hunger and
disease The newspapers We're allowed
to publish only incorrect and mitigated
and a systematic attempt was
made by the authorities to conceal that
there was any famine at all, though the
me authorities were doing their best
TO relieve it. The relief works failed
for they were organized too late, when
the people were too exhausted to come |
10 the stations When an American {
near Kazan, sent to the