UNHAPPY RUSSIA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVIII, Issue 81918, 19 February 1907, Page 4

UNHAPPY RUSSIA.

IN THE CLUTCH OF FAMINE. THE SUFFERINGS OF RUSSIANPEASANTS. "STARVATION, DISEASE, AND DEATH. ST. PKTERSUURCi. Dee. 23. "Complete famine. No bread. Nothing with which to feed the tattle. To save theuwdvcs and their eattle from starvation the peasants are selling t'ne latter at incredibly low prices. Even in liie aulumn input was sold at from a farthing tn a half jK-miy a pound. A liorso now fetches not more than the cost of its skin—from I" to 14/; a sheep from 2/ to ;!/." Such is the news which arrives daily from one or other of the score of provinces where millions of inhabitants are now suffering from famine. Prince LvoH' who has driven a thousand veratfi across tin; provinces of Samara an.l Kazan, gives a thrilling account of the horror.-, he luis seen. The peasants are literally dying of hunger. In only 11 out of the great number of villages be visited did be find some bundle-- ot rotten old straw upon tli:- roofs of the huts (elsewhere it iiad been taken nil for fuel and forage), and only two or three per cent of the populat'on bad anything left to eat. Skeletons ot horses are strewn along tae roads. The food in general use at present is called, characteristically, "faminebread," and is mule of acorns, sometimes with a slight sprinkling of Hour. It looks like a mixture of mud and manure. It. causes a frightful binning at the heart, and pains and swelling in the stomach. Typhus and scurvy arc prevalent. The Tartars are suffering in a incisure beyond'description. Famine has driven them to sell their daughters, and even their wives, to save them 'from starvation. The distribution of Government relief is now worse -organised than it has ever been before. In the great majority of villages no help is rendered at all. Where it is given it is iiisuflicienf., and is obtained under harassing ditliculties. 'the peasant is often obliged to travei 50 or 150 miles to obtain the sack or two of flour, and when he gets it he has no means of carrying it home, his hoisc being either already sold or too weak to drag any weight. We are now lonly at the beginning of the winter. What is yet to happen, what waits the .famished country, no one can tell.

This is the picture given by u correi-s----pondent in the Menselinsk district of Ufa province:— Owing to the drought, the district lias been stricken by a complete failure, of the harvest. The fields are as bare as a bone, the earth naked and black as a raven's wing. Many peasants had finished their store of bread even prior to the summer. The eattle are all sold. In the villages, the bouse of the Zeinsky Nadcalniek is daily besieged by crowds of people crying "Bread! Bread!" They stav there

until th.ey are dispersed by kicks and blows, when iii< honor's patience gives out. Hut no bread is forthcoming.