FAMINE IN RUSSIA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10535, 23 January 1912, Page 4

FAMINE IN RUSSIA.

Appalling details are being given in the Russian newspapers concerning the present famine, which has now involved no fewer than twenty Governments. The consequences of crop failure n« disastrous. In 1892 there occurred in the European provinces of Russia 800,000 deaths in excess of the normal figures— that is to say, in this single year famine carried off more lives than the I'ar Eastern waron both sides. It is a corollary of chronic famine in Russia that the normal death-rate is as high as 350 in 10,000 inhabitants, wliilo the figure for France is only 211, for Germany 181, and for New Zealand 10-1. The average duration of life in Raissia is also much shorter than . elsewhere. Of 1500 males in Russia only 297 reacli the age of 50 years, as against -112 in Germany, 476 >n France, and 537 in Sweden. Still more appalling are the comparative

statistics concerning the mortality of I infants (says tho St. Petersburg, cor- > respondent of the London' Telegraph). Tn .1906, of 1000 infants in Denmark only 122 died, in the United States ninet.v-eig.ht, in New Zealand sixtytwo, but in Russia (the mortality was 272 Comparative statistics of the 1 mortality of children show a still less ftivourahlo result. In Norway, of 10(K) children'lSO children die before reaching the age of five, in Denmark 211. in Sweden 186. In Russia the number is 495—thV is to say. of 1000 children born rn'Russia about one-half only stand a chance of reaching the age of five! This is not to be wondered at when we learn that in the Government of TJifa, m the present year, for many months alI ready the children have had no other J food than acorns, and .even acorns I will very soon not be available A physician in this Government writes to a St. Petersburg newspaper that snow has covered the forests, and the parents are now not able to collect even this primitive food for their children.