THE INDIAN FAMINE.

Evening Star, Issue 3478, 16 April 1874, Page 3

THE INDIAN FAMINE.

London, February 23.—A London ‘News’ correspondent, writing from India, describes the famine as follows “ Scarcity spreads over a wide tract along the foot of the Himalayas, bounding Nepaul, stretching from Uucle to near Darjeeling, remote districts, removed from railroads and other means of communication, and difficult of approach. Lord IS orthbrook informs me that the most serious distress is threatened in fifteen districts, in addition to Terras, comprising a total population of 26,000,000. TKia is not all. twelve other districts, with 11,000,000 people, are threatened, and are described as almost entirely without food and water. Ihe coolies and laborers feel the pinch most owing to the total suspension of work in the rice fields.” The correspondent concludes : “ From what I hare seen-firat. neither the Government nor the people can tell the precise actual position, nor prognosticate the future, secondly, the (Government is most fully alive to its responsibility and measures hare been taken to fully cope with the difficulties. Thir l, the absence of railroads in the remote districts is mostly to be dreaded, as the Government is thus without means for the avoidance of grave obstacles. He close? with the remark that he is under the depressing conviction that he has merely touched on what to him. seems a most momentous affair.