THE FAMINE IN ASIATICTURKEY.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1319, 4 August 1880, Page 2

THE FAMINE IN ASIATICTURKEY.

In a private letter, Mr. Tristam Ellis gives an appalling account of the scenes of famine which he has just witnessed in tho course of a journey from Diarbekir to Bagdad. Writing from the latter city to a friend in London, he says :—" At Mosul, I found the famine worse than evor. People were continually dying in tho streets, and mothers selling their children for slaves, or even worse purposes. It was very common to see men and children, a mere heap of bones, lying naked in the street, covered with tho flies they were too weak to brush away. And, worst of all, little dying children were hired by professional beggars for the purpose of exciting oharity and were exhibited naked in tho bazaars. I found one poor little baby, about four years old, qui to dead, and tho woman who was begging for something to give it was not a war© that it was so t Bread, upon which the people usually live, and which is worth generally about |d per pound, was then selling for more than a shilling. The people would have died, wholesale had it not -been for , the root of a sort of thistle that the spring weather had caused to come up, and that is very edible, and of conrso can be got for the trouble of collection. Tho ground for miles round the town was all dug up by the people for this root, and ' while they dug one saw them eating tbo ; grass and weeds round about as weR I don't think I over saw so many thin people at once in all my life before. A contrast to them were the rich mufti and kadi of the town, who wgr<s as fat and round about as usual,, and did nothing to relieve the distress around. In fact, most of thQiß- had large stores of grain themselves that they were, keeping back till the price should become still higher. The Government had ordered the stores of private individuals to be opened, and the grain sold by auction; but, as the principal stores were all hold by Government only some small stores belonging to people who had put by enough to got themselves and f&miles through the famine wore opened ; these people were, therefore* reduced to beggary, and the famine soaroely relieved. The show of crops was very good, but no rain had fallen for some time in that district (rather a contrast to what I had just been passing through), and great fears were entertained of another failure of crops this year; so prices were still going up and up. 0, ne day even bread was quoted at a prico equal to, 2s a, pound, but two days with rain just at the. right time caused thft price to fall to 6d in one day, showing; that the shareholders had got fright«wd>, and put a lot into the market at once.'