Sketcher.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, 17 September 1903, Page 2

Sketcher.

THE FINJSS ENDUES FAMINE. *^KWO W, strange to say, for nearly five qSflDl? months the hungry silence of j&tfgt famine has hung heavily over the a upland district of Northern J Sweden. Crop 3 that a sunless summer failed to ripen were inundated by mercileßß deluges of rain, and finally in many cases swept away by autumn floods, man's food and cattle's todder being involved alike in one common watery min. Since 1867 the psople cannot remember so general a failure of their harvest. But it was away in the far north, in Arctic Sweden, that the disaster was most rcomplete and overwhelming. There hunger is never very far distant from the door of the Finnish peasants and laborers, even in the best of seasons. Laßt autumn the shadow crossed the threshold and sat down with the family—an uninvited and unwelcome guest that had come to stay. Barley bread and sour skim milk, with a little fish or beef, the flesh of the reindeer or of cows slaughtered because of age or i failure to yield a sufficiency of milk Eorm the principal food cf these people. ' With the failure of their barley- crop went the Finns' hopes of food. The loss of their hay deprived the cattle of fodder and the milk fell short. Thus at one fell sweep two of the chief articles of the people's focd were taken from them, and they settled down to starvation with a errim stoicism strange to the Western mind. Physical and climatic conditions in tbe Arctic regions do not tend to a general brißkneß3 in the population. In a land shrouded with forests and hidden deep with snow during the greater part of the year silence becomes second nature. In such a country, where you can almost hear yourself think, speech seems superfluous. With the silence of the Finns goes their habitual lethargy, for which the long

Arctic »ights of their wintry land are mainly responsible. Curiously enough, when these same slow-moving, silent dull-witted folk leave their country for another such as the United Sfcatos they become more alert and agile both ia body and mind. But quick thought and supple movement are not to be expected from them in their Arctic homes, where sometimes for weeks together they never see the bub, and where their period of daylight even in early winter and late spring is but little more than four hours. In such circumstances the apathy of these people under their sufferings may be imagined if it cannot altogether be understood. Had they been left to themselves the distress among those Finnish-speaking stoics might conceivably have been far more serious—bad as it now is and has been. As it was, a few patriotic Swedes living among them grasped the seriousness of the situation and took the only stepa in their power to procure relief by letting the rest of Sweden know to what extent these silent, lethargic, slow-witted residents of the Arctic regions were in the crip of a slow and terrible starvation. Such private help in the shape of food and fodder as has been sent is now being doled out in quantities sufficient to keep the people and their cattle just alive. To give more is impossible. Even as it is the supplies of relief are nearly exhausted, and the prospects of obtaining more very uncertain. And in the midst of all this dearth the hunger-stricken Finns have still preserved their character as an honest, lawabiding, self-sacrificing people. Official statistics Bbow that crime—trivial and serious alike—baa actually diminished' since the outbreak of the famine. Thefts of food and fodder are practically unknown. Not that it would have been difficult to steal, but the people are so superlatively honest. Every starving peasant who has begged food from the local relief ommittees knows where the precious meal that would make the coarse bread for his hungry family is stored. But no hand has been lifted to take until permission has been given. Great stacks of relief fodder piled in easily carried bales at the railway stations in the Swedish Norrlands have been aB safe from marauding hands as if they were stored in the Governor-Geaeral's own tffi'je. The system of relieviog the want in the fauune-Btrieken districts t>f Norrbotlens province savors of the patriarchal, and with sufficient reason. The people, just like children, regard the local tffisials and chief residents who have undertaken the distribution as the heads of a family of whici they are all members, and obey them as such. The prevalence of such a spirit does away with any attempt at sharp practices, and ensures a perfectly equable partition, according to need, of all the stores in hand. The committees have gone in masy places on the principle that tho3B who can pay must do so for all food and fodder supplied to them. Those without money, yet strong and sturdy, must work. Only the aged, young or sick receive food free. It is only another proof of their sterling honesty that the peasants with stai ving cattle at home have carried heavy loads of hay and concentrated fodder for the relief committee from stations over one hundred miles from their villages, and have never attempted to appropriate even a single feed from the bales. They were content to wait until the end of their journey, when they would receive a small quantity in payment of their toilsome task, or perhaps be allowed to purchase a larger quantity on agreeing to defray the cost by instalments spread over a period of five years. The Finn's word is his bond. Once he has shaken hands on a bargain, no mattea what loss it may ultimately involve him in, he keeps his word. Stamped agreements could not make him do more. The man who goes back on such an unwritten contract had better leave the district at once. Boycotting such as is sometimes practised in Ireland is but a mild variant of the taboo under which he would find himself placed. If those people are loyal to one another, they are also kind to strangers. Despite their free and easy manners and ignorance of the usages of polite society, they render service without an eye to an ultimate reward in hard cash. When a traveller confers upon them an unexpected favor they say nothing, but clasp his hand firmly in silent, wordless thanks. A grave, quiet, melancholy people indeed are the Finns, but possessed of many excellent lovable qualities which make one's sympathies with them, all the deeper now in their hour of hungry need.