The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1912-03-06
MANY Want. FOOD
GAUNT famine SPREADS AMONG
TIE POOR OF TRIPOLI
PICK Up and EAT CORN

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Thousands Of Women and Children
in the War Zone are Slowly Starr.
ing to Death, While Their Fathers,
Husbands and Brothers are Fight
ing the Invading Italians.
A cablegram from AZizia, TripoI,
says famine has followed on the
heels Of war in the north of the prov
ince Of Tripoli. It is famine of the
c:uelist kind, for it's victims are al
most al women and children. The
adult males Of the population are one
and all at war with Italy. They draw
their rations and receive their am
munition, and even their horses must
not go short. Food for the soldier
and his mount has been doled out by
the Turks for the beginning Of the
war.
But Arab women are fighting for
the grains that fall from the horses'
nosebags, and babies that should be
plump and brown are bony and yel-
low, with skin the hue of dried
parchment stretched over rickety
franeworks Of bones. This must
! have been going on for weeks, for the
starving people who have come with
in the last few days to Azizia are the
mothers and wives and children OF
the men from that belt Of cases that
fringes the coast from Zauara east
ward nearly to the town Of Tripoh
itself.
The Italian massacres Of October,
and the casual shell fire from prowl-
ing cruisers, which have made tar
get of every mud-hut visible among
the palms drove these poor wretches
from their homes early during the
war. Those in the neighborhood Of
Zouara were gathered together by or
der of Musa Mehemet, the military
commander of the district. and hous-
ed in the stone fortress in the oasis
of Rigdalin, but it seems that hun
dreds from the scattered villages
further east fed in disorganized
crowds into the desert, and subsist-
ing on roots and rats and lizards,
have made their pitiful way at last
10 the new headquarters of the Turk
ish troops at AZiZia.
What do you want the barley for
to sell it?" woman was asked.
'For MY children to eat, Sidi,"
was the incredible reply.
Il did not believe her; and when
she began to lament the little store
of grain which the horse had made
her spill, I simply told her to go
away, or l would fetch the sentry"
said an eyewitness. "Afterward
was sorry. For on the very next
day saw woman crouched on the
ground near where some sacks OF
grain hac been, and she was picking
up grain by grain with ner fingers.
ITO. whom VIII you sell it?' I
asked. 4 shall eat it, she replied.
Surely you can rot live on horses
food? And she answered that she
and her children had eaten nothing
else for many day. Gradually I
found out that even those women,
who. with their children, have come
to hang on the outskirts of the army,
are in a state OF half-starvation. They
themselves say, we must eat little,
lest our fighting men go short
LAS for those who wander to and
fro in the desert, shelterless, nearly
naked, and with bones starting
through their skin, how they live on,
day after day, only those who know
the endurance Of the Arab race can
understand"
During the last day or SO crowds
Of them have gathered round the
white building which marks the head
quarters here at Azizia. 1t was the
death of a pack camel that brought
them. Hitherto, save for few bony
children begging for scraps in the
market place and for the furtiVe,
shrouded women cleaning the CRUMBS
that fall from the table OF the FOUR
footed beasts of burden, the famine
stricken wanderers have hidden their
misery rather than parded 1t.
It was not until the death OF a
camel that they Aocked in great force
to beg for food. The camel, blunder-
ing in the night time about the court
yard, had snapped its ungainly leg
across a wagon wheel. It filed the
night with hideous groans, and was
killed to put it out of pain. The
news spread through the desert hol-
lows, where the fugitive women and
children hide, as the news Of a CAM
els death always spreads among the
hungry wastes Of Africa.
Fhey focked to Azizia, a ghastly
crew of scarcecrows. There were
withered hags Of 16 and IT that
should have been graceful maidens,
and some of them carried en- their
backs-the most dreadful sight OF
all-stunted, lethargic Gnomes thae
might have been the sundred shrlF-
ellie; bodies Of little apes. Like the
chorrs Of The Tragedy OF Want
they sat in a patient semi-circie be
fore the archvay Of the courtyard.
They did not need any pleading other
I.h,n rneir looks. The dead camel
WIS cpr I'd and distributed among
.hapl