FAMINE IN RUSSIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 November 1921, Page 6

FAMINE IN RUSSIA.

, TERRIBLE CONDITIONS. ESPECIALLY IN HOSPITALS. By Telecrapli.—Press Assn.—Copyright London, Nov. 27. Sir Philip Gibbs, in a message to the Daily Chronicle from Russia, says that in many areas the seed sown was not nearly sufficient -for next year’s haivest. The hospitals jn the famine area are practically without medicine. Disease feeds on the ill-nourished bodies and the graveyards grow fat. Owing to lack of fuel the hospitals are overcrowded, and, being ill-ventilated, the stench is worse than that of a battlefield with unburied dead. Few patients have bed coverings, they are mostly women and children. The nurses are hardly any healthier than the patients, but they stick to the task until they sicken and die. Many nurses belong to the better class who have been degraded under the new regime. In Kazan itself there is not much sign of famine, and the opera is crowded every night. Soviet officers and clerks .move about warmly clad and cheerful. It is only by going to the outlying villages that the great human tragedy is seen.