The famine in India.
--The accounts of the famine are as bad as ever.
The
Bombay Gazette says:‘ An eye-witness declares that the statements which have been published of the extent and severity of the suffering are in no wise exaggerated.
Extensive districts throughout the
Northwest, which in times of prosperity are like the "garden of the
Lord," are now uncultivated and deserted.
The cereals have not been sown, in most cases, for want of rain; in other cases for want of seed, the seed having been consumed for food, and the Banners refusing to advance, as there is no prospect of a remunerative return.
’
The prospects for the future are as dark and gloomy, therefore, as the present distress is grievous.
The people throughout the country have contributed liberally for the relief of the sufferers.
Bombay has given one lac and thirty thousand rupees.
Calcutta has given an equal sum. Aid from
Madras is yet to be realized.
What would such an amount of money do, even under the most favorable circumstances, to save three millions of people from perishing for lack of bread!
There are three great asylums at
Delhi, outside the city; One at the
Knoodsea Bagh, the original relief house, which admits only the most aged, infirm, and feeblest objects of compassion, as well as the latest arrivals, who are committed to the
civil surgeon for treatment.
In this there were some eight hundred.
The second place is the great enclosure of the Eodgah, in which from six to eight thousand receive a meal a day. The third refuge is outside the
Delhi Gate, where from three to four thousand assemble daily.
