The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1921-12-11

these people, and tney turn everything
into bread, even into such a terrible
sort as this. For example. one man
whom we saw said that he had had
eight lambs. and now all but two Of
them had been sold in order to buy
bread. lie had not thought to eat the
lambs.
From this village we drove few
versts further on to Loobimovla. Here
we saw an entire family that was ac-
tuaIly dying Of starvation. There were
the father and mother and four chill
dren three girls and one boy. When
we entered the father was lying on a
wooden bench, and he raised himself
fup slowly and with difficulty. He was
man of huge frame, who had wasted
away to a skeleton. His clothes hung
on him in rags. There were such holes
ia them that his leg, almost from the
thigh to the ankle, was exposed. It
was bone merely loosely hung with
skin. He was so weak that his talk
was only a mutter. The family except
the one child, who was getting the
American meal, had nothing to eat.
They had been brought to this condi-
ton by the crop failure, and had sold
off everything they had until nothing
was left with which to buy food. The
mother and two girls were lying in the
cubby hole over the stove, Russian
fashion, and occasionally moaning.
The boy, who was about 10, with a fine
, face, and splendid, frank eyes, was so
weak that he could not even smile or
show any animation whatever. There
were a few pieces of bread, of the kind
II have described previously, in the
house. and that was all. They were
simply waiting for death.
Anything we could do for this fam
lily would, OF course, be only pallia-
tive, and would postpone only for
few days, the inevitable, but we could
not leave without doing something, SO
we gave the man some rubles. He
fingered them in q. vacant manner and
muttered to himself What can I do
with them?" We thought, at first. that
he was trying to choose how to spend
it, but the official of the village who
was showing us about said that even
If he had tons of money there was
nothing in the village which he could
buy. No one had anything to spare,
except perhaps little milk. We told
the official to. buy at once what. milk
he could, and on the next day to get
some bread in Tetyushi which he
promised to do,
This was the worst family In this
village, but we saw several others
which were almost as bad. where the
only food they had was bread made
out Of cabbage leaves and soup made
of the same substance.
It may seem incredible to you, as it
did to us, how, in a, village of a thou
sand or so people, one family known
TO them ALL perhaps liked by them
all, perhaps with even intimate friends
among them gould be actually dying
for want OF something to eat when
others were still living and apparently
IN good condition. The answer is that,
while some families are now in good
health and good condition, they have
barely enough to tide themselves over
the emergency. There is not particle
of surplus To give, even to a friend
to save him, would mean that they and
their children would starve later.
Back in Kazan we visited the receiv-
ing homes for children, where the waits
are brought in from the streets, and
some hospitals. The children are first
taken into a large receiving room;
from here they go to a room where
their pedigrees is taken; from this they
pass to another in which their heads
are shaved and their dity clothes taken
away from them, and from this to the
bathroom, where they are thoroughly
scrubbed. After this, they are taken
to a room where they are observed for
couple OF days for disease, and from
this they are put into other rooms in
this building. or in other homes.
At Ufa, in these homes, all the chill
dren were clean and ti>ir clothes We're
clean. but the clothing sas wholey in
adequate. At Uft there are also a bed,
a mattress and a pillow for each child
in these homes, but there are no bed
coverings, so that the children must
have always been cold. At Kazan,
while the children were taken care of
in the orderly way have described,
and seemed to have plenty to eat, there
were no beds at all at the time, and
the children were compelled to sleep
on the floor.