THE BRAZIL FAMINE.

Temuka Leader, Volume 2, Issue 143, 7 May 1879, Page 3

THE BRAZIL FAMINE.

The simple word “ famine ” (says the ‘ Alta California’) carries with it a sensation of dread like the words smallpox. Either is fearful enough when thought of singly ; much more so when it Ireemrms a fart and-is present with, its horrors ; but how indescribably mure dreadful the two combined to those living subject to their double horrors. The people of Ours, Brazil, have .bad both of these afflictions among and upon them, and the result is that the district lias been almost entirely depopulated, the people who had not died taking advantage of the opportunity given by the Government, which furnished them with the means of emigrating. A correspondent of the New York ‘ Herald,’ writing from Ceava, Brazil, in that journal of February 14th, gives about seven columns description of the terrible visitation and what he saw there. The country afflicted is a plain, and the people depend for water, during part of the year, upon the bed of the dried up river, digging wells in the sand. From January to June is the rainy season. Thence to January there is little or no rain, (Sometimes there is no rain the year round. Consequently failure of crops, poverty, hunger, starvation, disease, and death by hundreds of thousands of the poor people. _ These are reported as the most degraded class in Brazil, immoral, ignorant, filthy ; a mired race of whites, blacks and Indians, producing an Arab like race, “ People who have no property, and never try to rise above their normal condition,” says the correspondent. The drought commenced in 1377. No rains, no crops, sickness, death, desolation followed : the grass, trees, vegetation died : the people abandoned their children, and oven ate them. After a long time i ho Government gave them some assistance, and then the people become willing - mcntlic ■ ..us . receiving the Government's buuuß, giving and doing nothing iu return, beet Emily drawing their supplies and living in idleness. From the description of the people by the correspondent, one is almost tempted to say that such a people are not deserving of aid or pity ; hut perhaps there are exceptions—or were, for most of them have" died or removed —and humanity 1 cannot stop in such eases to question as to character. The droughts brought the inevitable results, not merely hunger and starvation, hut disease (the smallpox)—robbers who swept the country, taking the lew cattle that survived the drought : and finally, what the correspondent believes to ha the veritable plague, or black death, which never before lias visited our Continent. Eooplo taken with it die in (wo hours turning black in spots, and thou all over, lucre hove been fearful famines in Hmdostan, Chsua and elsewhere, even now in Morocco, hut this correspondent calls the famine in Brazil the most terrible that has ever afflicted humanity.