Kitabı oku: «Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 727, December 1, 1877», sayfa 5

Owen Kearney's house was not burned; but after his son's transportation, nothing could induce him to live in it. He therefore sold his furniture and such of his stock as the cruelty and violence of the Mollies spared, and went to end his days amongst his wife's relations in the County Galway. Dora and Martin were married, and after some time emigrated, and spent the remainder of their days in comfort and happiness, clouded only by the memory of how much pleasanter it would have been if they could have settled down in the old farm-house dear to them both, to be a comfort to their father and mother in their old age, and at last to sleep beside them in Glenmadda churchyard.

The stock of one of the wealthiest gentlemen in the County Roscommon now graze where Owen Kearney's house once stood. Not a trace of his family remains in the Green Isle. Their tragical history is almost forgotten; but amongst the gossips and old women the softie's dream is still remembered.

GLIMPSE OF THE INDIAN FAMINE

On this dismal subject so much has lately appeared in the newspapers that we almost shrink from troubling our readers with it. Everybody knows the cause of the famine – a long and unhappy drought in Southern India which parched up the land; nothing would grow; the people, millions in number, had saved nothing; their means of livelihood were gone; and with a weakness which we can scarcely understand, they sat down to die – of starvation. In times when India was subject to Mongol rulers, the population, on the occurrence of such a catastrophe, would simply have been left to die outright. Famine, like war, was deemed a legitimate means for reducing a redundancy in the number of inhabitants, and was accepted as a thing quite natural and reasonable. Matters are now considerably changed. India is part of the great British empire, and British rule is no doubt a fine thing to be boasted of. It gives the English an immense lift in the way of national prestige. Along with prestige, however, come responsibilities that are occasionally found to be rather serious. The bulk of the people of India are living from hand to mouth. If their crops fail, it is all over with them. Then is heard the distant wail of famine from fellow-subjects, which it is impossible to neglect. Noble subscriptions follow, although subscriptions of one sort or other come upon us annually in regular succession from January to December. But when was the Englishman's purse shut while the cry of distress was loudly pealing around him?

There is much satisfaction in knowing that more than half a million sterling has been gathered for the assuagement of the Indian famine. Although vast numbers perished of hunger, vast numbers were saved by a well-conducted system of dispensing food suitable to the simple wants of the people. The natives of Southern India live chiefly on rice, and a little serves them. The distribution of rice was accordingly a ready and easy method of succouring the poor famishing families. Along with boiled rice there was usually given a cup of water, rendered palatable by some sharp condiment, such as pepper or chillies. This desire for hot-tasting condiments seems to be an inherent necessity in warm climates, for which Nature has made the most beneficent provision. With these few preliminary remarks, we proceed to offer some extracts from the letters of a young medical gentleman connected with the army at Madras, descriptive of the plans adopted to feed the assembled crowds who flocked to large camps or barrack-yards in a state of pitiable suffering. The letters were no way designed for publication, a circumstance which gives them additional value.

'Madras, July 25, 1877.– There is not much news this week. One day I drove out to one of the Relief Camps beyond Palaveram to see it. A most curious and interesting sight it was. We went at half-past five, which was feeding-time; and there we saw nine thousand five hundred starving wretches all seated on their hunkers [crouched down in a sitting attitude on their heels], awaiting their food. What a motley crew and queer mixture of old men with more than a foot in the grave; strong men and young women and unweaned babes all mixed indiscriminately, but all seated in long rows of about a hundred each, in perfect order, and kept so by not more than a dozen native police with two half-caste inspectors. The majority of the people were Pariahs. Few caste people care to come to the camps, and prefer to die rather than have their food cooked for them by non-caste persons. However, there were some – about two hundred in all – Hindus and Mohammedans, and they were set apart from the Pariahs.

'The food, rice, is cooked in enormous chatties, and then spread out on matting to cool; after which it is put into gigantic tubs, which are carried slung on bamboos by a couple of coolies to the people, and a large tin measureful given to each. A measureful of pepper water (a mixture of chillies and water) is also given to each, and as much drinking-water as they like.

'So much for the food; now for the camp itself. It is situated on a large plain, and the inclosure is about a mile round. It is in the form of a square, three sides consisting of chuppers [a kind of wood and matting tents], roofed in, and protected from the wind on one side, being open on the other. Each of the three chuppers or houses of accommodation is built of the very simplest material: the floor is hardened mud, perfectly smooth and comfortable, as you know the people make it; while the roof consists of leaves matted together, supported on bamboos, and the side of matting. Each chupper is about a quarter of a mile long, and has accommodation for no end of people, the evils of overcrowding being avoided by the almost free exposure to the air. To windward is the Hospital, a good building, rain-proof, and covered in on all sides. Still further away are cholera and small-pox hospitals. The people at the camps receive two meals a day of rice and pepper water; and once a week on Sundays they get mutton. At this camp alone not less than fifty bags of rice were cooked and consumed daily, sometimes much more. The camp is open to all comers, and each is provided with a cloth and residence. The people appear all to be contented and happy, and await their turn for food calmly and patiently. The feeding is proceeded with rapidly now; but when first the famine came, it was not so; and owing to the paucity of servants, the feeding used to last from five P.M. till five the next morning. Rather trying for starving people to wait that time; hard too on the servants. Now, thanks to good administration, the feeding is all finished in about three hours. I was struck on the whole with the aspect of the people; they all with few exceptions looked well and in good condition. However, the Inspector said, had I seen them when they first came, it was different, and that if they were to return to their own villages, they would be dead in a few days. In fact, all the villages round are empty. Rice has now reached the appalling price of three and a half measures for the rupee, and of course one has to pay all one's servants extra. The poor cannot live, and they say the famine is getting worse! Only one man did I see who was lying among the others. Poor fellow! he had just managed to crawl into camp, and he was dying. I ordered him to be removed to the Hospital, a living skeleton.

'The Hospital was truly a sad sight, the saddest I ever saw. There in one ward, lying on the floor, were a dozen beings, literally living skeletons, with sunken eyes, and ghastly hollow cheeks, and livid lips, with their bones almost protruding through the flesh; too ill to move, and barely able to turn their glassy, stony stare upon you. Yes, dying all from starvation, and being hourly brought nearer death by wasting diarrhœa or dysentery.

'One woman I shall never forget. She had her back to me, and her shoulder-blade stood out so fearfully that I gazed upon it in momentary expectation of its coming through the skin. So awful was it, that I felt almost tempted to take my nail and scrape it, in order to see the white of the bone. Perhaps the saddest sight of all was the lying-in ward, where a lean mother was to be seen unable from weakness to nurse the bag of bones she had given birth to; barely a child surely, with its huge head and sunken eyes and its projecting wee ribs. Poor infant, it couldn't live long.'

'August 7.– This morning I was up at five, and after my breakfast of porridge and goat's milk, was driving out to Jeramuchi Famine Relief Camp, eleven and a half miles distant. The camp is much the same as the Palaveram one I already described to you; but it is superior, and more luxurious in some ways. It is not built in the form of a square, and is all the better of that, I think. It is fenced in all round with a trim palisading, as was the other camp, sufficient to prevent the people straying at night. The chuppers are arranged on the pavilion system, right down the centre of the camp. During the day they are entirely open at both sides, therein differing from the Palaveram ones, where one side is always closed. However, at night either side can be closed, as the sides consist of pieces of matting on a wooden framework, which is hinged to the side of the roof; and during the day the sides are all put up, supported on two bamboos each.

'The children at this camp are all collected together and fed first, the grown-up people afterwards. This morning I saw five thousand children, in age from twelve to infants, mustered for breakfast. An old gentleman with great swagger played a tom-tom with a couple of sticks; it was in the shape of a kettle-drum, and they all mustered, standing up in a row. M – and I walked down two streets of these children. They were almost all bright and happy-looking; and on being asked if they had enough to eat, they all replied in the affirmative, save one boy about twelve, who shook his head and smote his belly. Poor creature; his looks confirmed his words; there he was on two legs like walking-sticks, mere bones without an atom of muscle, on which he could hardly stand. On being asked when he came in, he said last night. Where were his father and mother? Oh, father, mother, brother, sister, and he all left village together; walked many, many miles; no food. First sister, then mother, died on the road; then brother; yesterday father; he alone being able to reach the Relief Camp.

'This tale is only a repetition of dozens of the same. He was ordered milk and port wine as extras; and I hope the poor orphan being will recover. We went over the rest of the camp; saw the men and women all sitting patiently in rows in their dreamy eastern way, silently awaiting the summons of the tom-tom after the children's breakfast was over, to call them to theirs. On coming to the Mohammedan women, about thirty in number, they all promptly stood up. One could not but be struck with their appearance, so fair-skinned, clean-looking, and handsome, compared to the Pariahs and others. They all spoke Hindustani of course, and were most polite and respectful. Despite the poorness of their attire and the absence of their jewellery, they had a refined air about them, and a superior look totally foreign to the ordinary Hindu. One young girl I was particularly struck with; she could only have been about fifteen, with most lovely eyes and perfect teeth, and such a figure. Ah! I thought, if this young woman was dressed in European clothes and was a lady, she would make a figure in London. Dressed in a scarlet and golden saree, with bangles and other jewellery, she would to my mind have been the realisation of my idea of an Indian princess.

'The Hospital presented the same sad scene of cases of emaciation as at Palaveram; there were more than one hundred cases of dysentery and diarrhœa. I also saw another case of a milkless mother trying to suckle her newly born handful of bones in the lying-in ward. It is a mercy with such a large community that no cholera prevails. They have about twenty cases of small-pox. Leaving camp, we saw two stretchers coming in with coolies. Every morning the highways and byways are searched for three miles round; and those poor creatures who have died or are found dying, unable to come to camp, are brought in. If dead, they are at once buried about a mile away from camp; if alive, they are sent to Hospital. The famine continues very bad; and there was a great meeting in Madras at the Banqueting-hall, when it was acknowledged government could not now cope with it without extraneous aid. Accordingly a telegram was despatched to England, calling on the Lord Mayors of London, Dublin, Manchester, Liverpool, and the Lord Provosts of Edinburgh and Glasgow, to open subscription lists. I am sure it is a worthy cause… In Mysore alone there have been more deaths the last three months than during the last five years. The Viceroy is said to be coming down immediately from Simla to personally inspect the state of matters.'

In a subsequent letter, October 25th, the writer adds – 'The accounts are still dreadful. Many poor creatures die after reaching the camps, from inability to swallow or receive the nourishment offered to them in the hospitals. The day the Viceroy visited Bangalore, no fewer than ninety dead bodies were found in the streets and the bazaar. The people at home have certainly done much to help their poor brethren in India; but I believe they would do still more were they to be thoroughly aware of the terrible scenes which have come under my notice.'

In conclusion, it is not out of place to say that the frequently occurring famines in that country call for measures of prevention as well as temporary aid. In making roads and railways, the English have done vast service to India; but something equally imposing in the way of irrigation from artificial tanks and from rivers has seemingly become an absolute though costly necessity, for only by such means can a repetition of these dire famines be averted. In this direction evidently lies the duty of legislators, and we hope they will, with considerate foresight, be not slack in its performance. There might also, possibly, be something done by enabling masses of the redundant population to emigrate, under safe conduct, as coolies to countries where their labour is required.

W. C.