The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette. — 1861-04-23 (Dorchester, Dorset, England)

INDIA .—THE FAMINE. ie Bombay journals of March 27 and Calcutta journals of March IS, received this morning, contain further afflicting accounts of the famine. In the Delhi district thousands are dying. It is stated that many who manage to escape from starvation fall victims to crime. Frequent and terrible murders are occurring daily. From l'inlialla we hear (Nlarch 10) that there had been a good fall of rain which Listed three days. There had also been a little rain at Rowel Pilule° and Bareilly. Throughout the !,titral Doab the distress was universal. A Delhi eontemporary makes the following observations : The pressure of the prev.ilmg &stress, and the opprehension pretty widely fen by natives of the coutine' eitoret- the famine, sad s subsequeut visitation of a pestilence or epidemic, low given rise to a sentiment to say the least, if nothing else, poetic. It is, that the souls of the Innocents who were murdered at . Cewripore, Shahjelmopore, and other plates, during the mutiny, have been crying eat for vengeance em their murderers, sad their oriel have at last been hived in the mart of Reaven, frmu which the fiat has moue forth for the levy of that retribution from the Waehitained land which no Inman arm has yet • talus. Those among the natives who are given to reflect on events. cannot fail to be struck with the ',resent ee_pect of affairs. la most of the places in the YorthWe,t where three yeas ago English blood was treacherously and mercilessly shed, the poor of the land are fed end supported iii thousands at the expenditure of lees Ci ri by the survivors of the very race whose eaves attempted by trescbery sod maamination so short a time ago. From this they may leatn a lesson in the tenets of the Christian faith. • While contributions sic pouring in from all parts of the country to relieve the sufferings of the people In the- Punjab and the Northwest Provinces, we have the mad tidings of the same dreadful calamity destroying hundreds of human beings in South Travancore. lii letters dated between the 20th of February and the 4th instant, published by • Madras contenipomry, we observe it 'toted that the whole of the cultivation this year has failed in consequence of • the drought, while there is not a paddy field in which the people could find employment. It appears that in Octobor last, a fair quantity of rain fell n that part of the country, but whole fields of paddy were destroyed by caterpillars, and cholera carried off hundreds, thus adding to the distress by the •mine. Hundreds at chiltiren,it is stated, are 'eft orphans, and many a widow had to sell everything to save herself and infants from starvation. The Rev. J. Cos thus describes the state of the people. This district is shoat 35 miles long and 20 wide, eon. leining, according to a former census. 150,000 people. Thu (mine is more felt in the southern parts of this di-trict. Great numbers of the people there are so week•as to be scarcely able to walk. They are so thin that their bones project. They have been subsisting i)n roots and leaves till these have failed, and they have sold little things they had about their houses, and parts of their houses and trees trona their gardens till these were rxhatuded ; and many have even sold children for such a sum as a quarter of • rupee and less. Many whom I knew penis months ago are now so thrunk that I can scarcely recognise them. The oonnniasioner of the Agra division had repotted to Government that the distress there was not on the increase • that there has by no means been anything like a iota] failure of spring or rubboe crops in Agra or NI uttra ; that a considerable yield of grain would be the produce of this year ; that larfslmports of grain from the eastward were daily arriving ; that th.ge had been rain in some of the • diet:acts, besides the Agra division, whose harvests were in jeopardy three weeks previously • and that iteamataneas would probably prevent a previously; rim) in the price of food, and might be expected to lower it considerably.