The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1900-07-25
RELIGION MAKES
THEM STARVE.
pERISHING NATIVES OF INDIA
DARE NOT EAT BEEF.
Millions of Cattle Roam the urass
Lands of the Famine otrick-
en- Country.

and marched. has been turned into
desert by the failure ottthe MonSuh
rains. There are grass lands ana 1oa-
der in other parts of India, but the
poor animals are too weak to be driven
tn them even if there were cattle ouy-
ers to take them away, so they die ike
flies, succumbing to Starvation more
quickly than their owners. The thought
has never occurred to the 3o,OOO,oOO In
dian peasantry now suffering from nun
ger that the cattle would have been
food resource to tide them over the
months of crop failure. They have plen-
tv of cattle. Among all the animals OF
India the various breeds of horned ana
bumped cattle hold the first llace'
They are the draft animals in the little
field Of the poorest peasant. All the
transportation of the inland roads de-
pends upon them. The household that
has not its COW is in the direst poverty
Suppose these natives, when the
signs pointed Enthusiastically to season
of crop failure, had cured under their
hot sun many thousand tons OF beef by
sun-drying, as jerked beef is prepared
in South America, undescri bable sur
fering and thousands of lives would
have been saved; but the very idea OF
making such provision as this against
the horrors of famine would be mex
ppessibly shocking to the loO,OOOOoO
people of India, who base their rellg-
ious beliefs upon the Vedas. They
would never dream of such profana-
ton of the teachings of Brahminlsm.
They would rather swallow dirt and
pnaw roots than eat beef and yet they
are not strict vegetarians, for all eat
butter and milk, and also ashland NUT
ton when they can procure them.
The Hindus and those who share
with them their religious beliefs are
Just what history tells US their fathers
were three and twenty centuries ago
The highest law that concerns the
Hindu is to eat correctly, and beef is
one of the prescribed foods, SO with
this food resource in every farm yard,
priced highly as it is by most OF the
world, the Hindu dies of hunger rather
than partake of it. These facts are
perhaps as impressive an illustration
as can be given of the profound inhu-
ence which religious injunction and
custom have upon the habits, tastes
and preiudices, and consequently upon
the com nerce, of whole nations.
'iThe value of East Indian cattle for
food has been amply demonstrated.
4 he $1,000, 600 Mohammedans living in
India have no qualms or scruples about
beef eating Some years ago we read
almost daily for time of bloodshed
between the Mohammedans and Hin
dus of northwest India. Beef was the
cause of the ihcipient warfare. The
Hindu neig bors of the Moslems de-
cided that their feelings had been out
ragged too long by tie repugnant spec
tacle of cattle shambles and beef eat
ing. They resolved to put an end to
them, but the undertaking was too
large for the comparatively small num-
Der of 2ealots who engaged in it.
In this vast region, so densely peo-
pied that the spectre of famine is not
far away even in years of plenty, no
meats are imported except for Euro
pean consumption. If there is partial
failure of rice, wheat, maize, barley or
the Indigenous grains on which the la
borer lives, starvation begins at once;
and so while India sells to the world
everyy year from $3.50, 600, 600 to 1850, 0O0,-
600 worth of products, and buys about
three-fourths as much as she sells, her
purchases are almost wholly textiles,
machinery, railroad material and coal,
even when hunger stalks abroad: and
the main reason why the great evil OF
famine is not averted or mitigated by
food Imports is because the religious
tenets of most of the people confine
them to the few cereals they raise
themselves as the mainstay of life. In
one respect, however, religious preju-
dice is blessing to the country. 1t is
TO the lasting shame OF. some modern
nations that they destroy thousands Of
baroarous or semi-civilized men and
women by selling them poison. in the
form of the purest qualities of alcoholic
liquors; but they find no market for
Their fiery gin and forty rod among the
hundreds of millions of East Indians
because Islam throughout the world is
vast teetotal society, and among the
Hindus to touch liquor is a sign of the
lowest caste. Thus certain religions