The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1900-06-27
THE TERRIBLE WOES OF INDIA.
Popular Subscription TO be Taken in
TiOneSta for Relief Of this Awfnlly
Afflicted Nation.

T for the relief of the sufferers from the
terrible famine now eXtant in India. Ii
will be known as an offering from Tio-
nesta and vicinity, and is entirely unde-
nominational. a. b. Kelly will act as
Treasurer and forward the money, every
penny of which will reach its proper
destination without cost, all express,
telegraph and transportation companies
having consented to carry funds abso-
lutely free No citizen should hesitate
TO contribute as literally as his means
will afford. We give below few ex-
is now in India, which will convey some
idea of the frightlul condition of our iel-
low mortals in that stricken land. We
might also add that the fund will be loft
open for the balance of this week in case
any from out of town or who may he
missed by the collectors, would care TO
contribute. Send your contribution TO
Mr.. Kelly, who will receipt and account
for the same, The correspondent allud-
cd TO writes
Things that are big are usually ofinter-
est to Americans. This famine in India
is the biggest in the worlds history. 1t
Is a thing of millions of scattered families,
millions of empty stomachs, millions of
living skeletons, millions of deaths.
have been looking over this colossal thing,
as one might say, inch by inch. Never
shall 500 n Ohio rnal houSa mora Araadr,,l
In great basin among the hills lay heaps
and heaps OF ashes, still white, the ashes
of a thousand human bodies. Hero was n
crematory where as in thousand others
Quoted on mighty scale. Tons of wood
were piled up in readiness. Other low
castles were bringing still more dreadful
fuel. And presently when all was ready
match was applied to pile of wood
here and Il pile of wood there, and the
funeral pyres of a score more of people,
who had come to death by famine or
cholera, were started. In the center of
each burning wood-pile were the bodies
of the departed. To the mind, it was an
awful holocaust, but the eye simply saw
number of bon-tires. 1t is the way the
Hindoos throughout India dispose of their
dead, and in time of famine and cholera,
it is an especially good and sensible way.
| next visited what is known as famine
poor house. It's thing of yellow mat.
ting, an enclosure big enough to hold
more than thousand people, divided in
to dormitories for sleeping, eating tents,
resting tents and hospital wards. 1t was
built as in the middle of desert. Not .
green thing was anywhere to be seen. All
the people now in the hospital slept on
the ground, eat on the ground, live on the
ground in the dirt and dus;. Ofthe thous-
and inmates, half were women and child
ren, about 300 were old men, and the re-
mainder, about 20 per cent of all, were
in the hospital wards. All the horrors Of
the famine, all the misery and suffering
resulting from starvation and neglect
seemed to concentrated here. The sick
and the well, the weak and the strong
were huddled all together. The people
had come there to die. The emaciated
forms lying under the general gathering
looked exactly like the pictures you have
seen of famine sufferers. Some of these
! poor people crawled to our feet on hands
and knees, and placing their heads in the
dust, mo'ned their supplications: 80 my
king, help us, and it will be well with
thee for we are very hungry" Others
called us kings of all kings and protectors
of the poor adding that we were their
fathers and mothers and would surely
| give them food. Even little children beg
ged thus. In the hospital wards the
scenes might have represented all the
forms ofsuffering depicted by Dante in
the Inferno. Here was father and son
dying side by side, with never hand to
lift cup of water to their fevered lips.
Here were children passing away, alone,
even unseen, lying under heap of rags.
Mothers addressed us saying: "Give us
food, and the Gods will give thee many
children" Every now and then bearers
would come with stretcher of mating
and carry off yet one more bodies to the
burning place. Such is poor-house in
the famine district. The mortality in this
district is not confined to human beings.
OF 300, 900 head of cattlo living at the be-
ginning of the famine, more than 200, 600
have died from the lack of water and fod-
der. Hence the immediate future of the
unhappy farmer who may survive the
present ordeal is very dark and discour-
aging. For, without cattle how can they
till the soil, and unless they SOW how can
they reap?
In order to meet the emergency, it is
now proposed to use a plow that can be
pulled by man, a light weight affair
adapted to the strength of an ordinary
farmland, And one of the noteworthy,
benelicent acts Of an American visitor was
the purchase Of 1000 of these plows for
distribution among the farmers of the vi
cinity. Such is the land of famine, the
drear, dread, dismal place where rivers
have disappeared, where wells are only
holes in the ground, where only the cruel
hedge of prickly pear is green, where you
are led TO believe that the whole world is
the color of dust-here may be seen sights
that either break the heart or harden it to
suffering chiefly the latter.
The India press is full of praise for
American generosity. The ship load of
corn, the vessel chartered by The Ameri-
can government and filled by the "Cbris.