THE FAMINE IN ALGERIA.

Westport Times, Volume II, Issue 277, 20 June 1868, Page 5

THE FAMINE IN ALGERIA.

A letter from Algiers, in the Vigie of Cherbourg, gives acme heartrending details cf the famine among the Arabs. The writer say 3: —As Orlsansvills I have seen from 150 to 200 cl these poor wretches scarcely covered with ragged burnoua, eating the leaves of the-aloe plant, and ycots of the dwarf pal to, and the filthy fragments abandoned in the streets. I have witnessed natives -coming down from the mountain, with asses laden with dates, robbed of all in an instant by these famished Arabs 3 the latter I have seen cudgelled unmercifully by Europeans in order to -make them desist, ?<nd yet they received the blows without seeming to feel them rather than give up 3. single date. At Relizanne I noticed squatted on the footpath, with their backs against the wall, some dozen of Arab children, the oldest of whom could scarcely be more than four. When I say children I make a mistake ; they were only skeletons; their legs and arms were, in the most rigorous meaning of the words, no more than bones covered with chrivelled skin. On looking at those poor little things so frightfully shrunk, one was at a loss to know by what effort they could stand on their feet. I bought a dozen pound loaves and distributed them to the starving children, but this was scarcely done when I was surrounded by a score of Arabs vociferating for a share. Only with great difficulty could I get out from the midst cf the poor wretches, the numbers of whom rapidly increased • and had it not been for the assistance of some Europeans I do not know what might have become of me. Scarcely had I got clear of the crowd when I saw them fall upon the children and snatch away the bread w'.ich I had distributed. At Oran, in the middle of the city, in front of the Hotel de I'Universe, I witnessed the most disgusting of spectacles Every evening there is thrown out of that establishment the remains of the kitchen, damaged leaves of salad, and other vegetables, the entrails of fowl and gams, and filth of that kind. Well, on the evening I spsak of I saw a dozen Arabs fighting with the dogs of the neighborhood over this offal."