FAMINE IN RUSSIA.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4016, 19 January 1892, Page 2

FAMINE IN RUSSIA.

Tbo Pangs of Starvation.

The latest despatches from the interior are nioro alarming (telegraphs a St, Petersburg correspondent of the ' Telegraph'), ■ The August' frosts have completely destroyed the barley crops, which constitute the staple food in Atohangel, and in the extreme North tho rains havo annihilated cropß,-

In Novgorod oven potatoes .are dearer than apples, auduo fodder oan be obtained for cattle, Horses are offered for sale for 2s or Bs, and colts for 3d per head. Tlie straw in the thatched roofs of the houses is being utilised for fodder, Cattle are dying in numbers on the roadsides, 'The Government regulations, made with n view of assisting peasants, are duoing more harm than good, Uon/B plete confusion prevails inoonsequonCiH of the various Ministers contradioting orders issued. 'The authorities are beginning to refuse material aid to peasants, and even to supply them with seed corn; hence immense tracks of land are lying in a state of waste, and fears are entertained that a scarcity of corn will be felt next year. Again, the cattle plague has broken out in \several places. The olergy are suffering terrible hardships, and - in some parts tbey are joining the army of beggars, Women are selling themselves to support their children No work is to be had even on the Volga, Everything is in a state of stagnation, Thesbaresof the Steam Navigation Company have greatly fallen, The new loan of 120,000,000 will be only a drop in the ocean. A large deficit is expected in the Budget, and, to make'matters''worse, tLe million loads >of rye promised by the Governor of a neighbouring proving by way of loan to the Russian district, and on whioh the ■ Ministry relied, are not forthcoming, They do not exist. This discorery is causing great consternation.

Jor tho com spirited away by ghoulish Bpecutatora—mainly Orthodox Christians, not Jewa—are sub\ stituted articles of diet the consumption of whioh seenia explicable, only on the hypothesis that man's digestive powers a« as ample as'those of the ostrich.- During the past two months the flour-mills of'.Sara'tof have been selling thousands of sapkp of" sweepings" and refuse to traders in the villages and towns on the Volga, who in turn sell them to suoh of the peasants as are fortunate, enough to possess something to bartev for them, The landowners refuse to i'give this "hungerfood" to : their cattle, because, without satisfying the craving for food, it invariably pro--1 duces spasms aiid swellings, whioh are frequently the symptoms of a fatal disease,. The latest telegrams, from Zazan state that the mosS loathesomeand deleterious ents are being put in the bread. baked for ',he people in that city, and goveminent despatches from the terior, dated. September 21, are of a uniformly depressing, character, Tho 'exorbitant prices fetched by rye are still increasing, and threaten to become prohibitive even for corporate bodies suoh as die JJernstvos,. Sunflower seeda'a're being sold in waggon loads' (' Novoe Vremya,' No. 6,5,77), Bread madoof, straw chopped, fine, bran, and an admixture' bl rye \i'% godsend, to obtain which thousands of human beings would sell their very bouls; ]?owderecl treobark, flavored

with ground peas, is esteemed an exoollent food by men who work as if ibeit bodies wore made of somo incorruptible metal, " Hunger-bread," mada of dried dung, tree bark, powdered pois, and gooaefoot, is not only not spurned, but grocdily grabbed up. In one district alouo of tbo government of Simbrisk, 37,850 starved human beings rose up en masse to jftavo their huts and go out into the world in tho hopes of finding what was denied them at home. In another district of tho Bame government (KarsoonsJ, 50,000 peasants portioned the authorities to let them migrate ov emigrate. Thousands are applying for permits to emigrate to China, concerning which 4.' country the most fantastic conceptions prevail—ideas as childish as those which drew Dick Wittington to London. The sight of theso armies of beggavs straggling through tho s country is, says the 'Novoe Vremya,' harrowing to a degree, They drift into towns already overstocked with workmen and would-bo workmen—as into Kertch, for instance, whither they came crowding like locusts; but, finding noither work nor food, some of them encamped in the Mithridates Hills, and others took refuge in tho subterranean caves. In Nijni-Novgo-rod the quays and landing places are literally black witli them. Pity for * those dear to them occasionally induces a husband to murder his wife, oAraother to put her children out of pffll. Suicide has becoiui: so rife since the famine began that the journals lmvo drawn attention to it.