The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1900-06-06
@attSman 4 sunrnal.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 1900.
ARTHUR ROPES. General Editor
The Famine In Iudia.


ITO, when it is reported that 10000 600
people persisted in Bengal alone. In
dia has scarcely passed decade free
from scarcity of grain in one district or
another. The British government ex-
poets drought, it is said, about twice
in every nine years, famine once in
every eleven or twelve, and great
famine like the present about twice in
a century.
AS TO the cause of these fatnines, it is
explained that India is a country not
quite half as large as the United States,
with four times its population. These
300, 100000 people must be fed from
their own crops, las there is, relatively,
no manufacturing resources to buy
food" There are parts of India with a
population of l 900 people to the square
mile, and there are millions upon mil
lions of vagrant and nondescript classes
whose means of living, even in times
of plenty, are inscrutable. In year
of normal crops the country produces
but little more food than is actually
necessary to feed the people. The
crops are dependent on periodic rains.
If these rains are late, or insufficient in
quantity, the grain crops suffer and
trouble comes. When the rains fail
entirely there is restitution in the af-
fected districts, and after a succession
of failures there comes great and ter
rible famine like the one that is now
enlisting the charity of the world, and
laying the charitable of all countries
under heavy contribution.
a famine occurred in 1897, and
America sent ship loads of grain and
provisions to relieve the furnishing.
The present famine is admitted to be
vastly worse than that of 1897, and may
become as destructive as that of 1877,
when 5000, 900 people died of starvation.
Some 100000 are said to be actually
famine-stricken, while some 100000
more are suffering, in a greater or less
degree, from scarcity of food. Thous-
snds of men, women and children are
dying every day "because there is no
breakfast, dinner or supper for them"
The famine tract is great arid area
of 100000 square miles in the westerly
and northwesterly provinces. Its area
ia larger than that of England, Scot
land, Wales and Ireland combined.
What is Great Britain doing to res
cue the perishing in the chief of her
colonies? She is credited with a good
system for the discovery of coming
trouble in any district, with the insti-
tuition of government works to give
destitute people chance to earn their
living, with the creation of govern
ment fund to feed those who cannot
work. There is famine code that
"reduces to a science the various oper-
ations of locating, estimating and fight
ing the famine" Many noble English
men and government servants, from
Lord and Lady Curzon down, are CIV
ing their means and their labors to
relieve restitution, but their numbers
and their resources are appallingly
inadequate to the demand. To supply
food to the starving there is famine
fund maintained by an annual tax, and
charitable contributions at home, from
America and other countries. Vice.
roy Curzon and his wife are credited
with contribution of $4,000, which
seems to be considered munificent.
Some 100000 men, women and chill
dren are employed on the government
works. They break stone for the
highways, dig wells, and are engaged
at various other tasks. The men re-
ceive three cents day, the women
and children less. The laborers bring
their families with them, they are
herded in squalid camps where misery
Ell z ms, where disease makes fearful in
roads and hopeless moral degradation
exists.
Aroused by the appeals Of Rev. G..
M. Sheldon in the Topeka Capital,
Kansas has sent to India 10000 bushels
of corn, and the steamer taking it out
carried other contributions. A cargo
of corn, sold in Chicago for the famine
sufferers, brought sixty-fve cents a
bushel, twice as much as it was worth.
There is organization in all parts of the
United States to procure and despatch
to India food and other means of relief
Americana, whatever the exasperating
circumstances under which the call
may come, never turn deaf ear to the
cry OF distress.
England is the chief mendicant OF
the world. She is almost constantly
before the nations, hat in hand, seek
ing aims for her subjects dying from
hunger in some parts of her worldwide