THE PERSIAN FAMINE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 498, 3 November 1871, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE PERSIAN FAMINE.

Fuller reports give new, and, if po sible, even more horrible and appalling details of the Persian famine. I Phe dearth is very ma th more wide spread than at first reported. In place of being confined to the province of Khorassan, it extends over the entire land. Already the Jo-s of life has been fearful. Persia is said, on reliable authority, to have lost fifty er cent, of her population. Thousands ot people, ha f lami-died, have dragged themselves across the frontier into I Turkish Arabia and Cabot>l; while | those who have t ot had the euergv to emigrate, or who have been prevented from doing so by the strong arm of the Government, are daily dting bv thousands from starvation. A Persian subj. ctcanuot leave his native country, e' en to go upon a pilgrimage to Meshed Hosien or to M ecc t, without special permission of the authorities, and tnis permission is even now, in spite of the present appalling condition of the country, still insisted upon. The people. in desperation, however, nseev<rv means to elude the vigilance of the Government, and escape into happiir lands.

It appears there was a terrible drought last year, which was fo’ lowed, as a natural consequence, by a partial failure of the crops. There was great suffering and privation, but comparatively little nv rtalitv.

Early in the yn r, in spite of the general impoverishment of the people, the Government, with shocking inhumanity, raised the taxes. Phis completed the misery of its unhappy subjects. »Yhat little money they had left was torn from them, and they were left beggared to face a year whose horrors had but begun. The new crop has failed also. The people have endeavored to keep themselves alive by eating grass and roots, but even this scanty nourishment has now been exhausted.

People have sold their children into slavery in order to save them from starvation, and, at the same time, to acquire a few tomauns to spend in the bazaar for sustenance

In Ispahan men have been caught in the act of exhuming the corpses of the dead for the purpose of eating them All domestic animals, eved horses, of which Persia raised a great many, not onlv for her own n«e, hut also for exportation to Pndia, havebeen killed and eaten

The people are almost beyond the reach of heK Even if food were brought from India, there are no cattle left to transport it into the interior. This dearth will probably be the most horrible on record.