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FAMINE-STRICKEN GROUP.
(206)

This Photograph tells its own tale; there is no necessity to describe what is so truly and affectingly represented. The people are Hindoos and Mahomedans together; neighbours, perhaps, in some distant village where misery gradually made them akin, and they have, at last, been forced to abandon all, and crawl into the great city for relief. How many thousands did this in the famines of 1837, and that of 1860-61? But what a difference existed in the two periods in respect to the people. The drought and scarcity of grain in both famines were the same, perhaps; but in 1860 there were good trunk roads and railways, which brought supplies of grain in abundance; and, except in the remoter localities of the provinces, the distress was in a great measure alleviated, if not entirely removed. In 1837, notwithstanding the efforts of Government and of private individuals, the mortality per day in two of the chief cities rose to the frightful amount of no less than twelve hundred souls, principally arising from the crowds of famished creatures who, like those represented in the illustration, had crowded in from the districts around, reaching the scene of relief so worn and wasted by famine that they were too weak to make use of the grain served out to them, and so died, with the food literally in their hands. In India, where the cereal crops depend upon a periodical fall of rain to bring them to maturity, it follows that, whenever there is no rain the crops perish; and that between the supply of food lost, and that to come, there is an unavoidable interim of from nine to twelve months of total unproduction, and famine ensues. Unless such a locality may have the advantage of an accessible sea coast, or the benefit of a railway, it is impossible to supply food. No draft or carriage cattle can travel beyond the limit at which there is fodder for them, and it has too often happened that this embraced a wider area than even famine itself. It is not even too much to say that the great extension of local trade has added to the risk of famine, and to its pressure when it may ensue. The stores of grain which existed formerly in every village, and were preserved from year to year with little variation, are now carried away to supply distant demands; and where cotton and oil seeds,