The Chattanooga news. [volume] (Chattanooga, Tenn.) 1891-1939, 1919-06-13
HEADING OFF SPECTER
Few Nations Face Even Threat of
Postwar Plaques.

Perhaps no barometer more surely
indicates our advancing civilization
than the success OF efforts now being
made to avert the hitherto invariable
handmaidens of war--pestilence and
famine.
One refutation of the always has
been, therefore always must be" argu-
ment for war is the fact that civilized
nations are emerging from the greatest
war the world has seen and averting
the two other consequences always
deemed inevitable--plague and starva-
ton. True, nations which represent
ancient civilization also exhibit the old
phenomenon;. hence those peoples more
highly organized economically not only
must Withstand the shock for them
selves, but must help feed other lands.
Ralph A. Graves, OF England, in
communication to the Geographic So
England, in striking contest to her
present conditions after the terrible
strain she has withstood. He says:
THE story of famines in England has
been a gloomy one from earliest times.
AT the beginning OF the Eighth century
a dearth, which extended to Ireland,
drove men to cannibalism. 1t was not
until the reign of Athelred the Unready,
however, that such a famine prevailed
as no man can remember, from 1908
"Those chroniclers who were wont to
see bad conditions at their worst de-
clared that half the population OF the
larger island persisted. But it must be
remembered that much of the mortality
of this period was occasioned by the
wars between Athelred and Sweyn the
Dane, the latter being forced by the
famine to retire from England for a
time.
Naturally, the era following the ad-
vent of William the Conqueror was one
of widespread starvation and peStilence
among the English peasantry. OF the
last thirty years of the eleventh CEN
fury, nine were years of dire distress
80 great was the dearth in 1863 that
the peasants of the north, unable longer
TO secure dogs and horses to appease
their hunger, sold themselves into slav-
cry in order to be fed by their masters.
fering during the succeeding reigns OF
William Rufus and Henry I, and the
civil wars OF Stephens time and under
Henry II. But the next dearth which
that which befell the people in the days
of Richard Occur de Lion, the Crusader.
! There is a brief reference to the FAM
| inc of this period in .Iyanhoe.' Star;
walton was followed by a pestiential
fever. Ceremonial burial was omitted
| except in the cases of the very rich.
while backward seasons were con-
| tributing factors, the responsibility FOL
the two great famines of Henry III
reign is to be laid at the door Of the
| EONtTHIIltiil llSSlls III TIC III % VI tAiSSN
| G235) 10000 persons are said TO have
| died in London alone. The suffering II
| 1257-59 was even worse.
at was during this famine that Eng
| land for the first time imported from
Germany and Holland grain to alleviat
the suffering OF her poorer classes. Tn
first ordinance in English history de
| signed to curb the greed Of the middle
man was passed during this time o
shortage in food supplies.
Few English kings have live
through greater periods of distress tina
| Edward II, who was scarcely able I
secure food for his own immedlat
i household when Che heavy rains Of 1871
spoiled the harvests. Everything i'm
aginable was eeten-dogs, horses. cat'
and even babies.
with the exception of the worl
war perhaps no other calamity tina
ever befell the human race can be com
pared with that Of the Black Death an
the accompanying famine, which al
f1icted all western civilization durin
the middle decade OF the Fourteent
century It's toll has been variousl
estimated at from one-fourth to three
fourths OF the entire population OF FL
rope Certainly II was not less tina
1000, 900 people.
"Out oil the situation which resulte
from the impoverishment Of the lab'