14 NOVEMBER 1896, Page 1

The new Lord Mayor denies the report that he intends

to raise a million sterling for the London hospitals, and we are glad to see the denial. The older hospitals will benefit like other great landlords by the rise in the price of wheat, and we greatly fear that the single special subscription of next year must be (I. voted to the relief of our fellow-subjects in India. A w. II-informed correspondent, whose letter will be

found eb.ea het e, tells us that this is the fifth year of scarcity,

and that nwans that all surplus stores and most of the savings of thp. people in the huge area of the present distress

are exhall -b.& No rain has fallen, and we believe that there are letters in botiden, from persons who cannot but know the

truth. which express the gloomiest forebodings. One writer,

bound by his position to the most careful reticence, says that if the rain is not heavy before November 25th, the disaster will be the heaviest sinee the Mutiny of 1857, while the bread-riot at Sholapore, where the troops were compelled to fire to save the grain-dealers, speaks for itself. While there is a penny in the locker or a halfpenny to be borrowed. the Indian leaves the grain-dealer, who is also the local gom been man, severely alone, but once face to face with hunger for his children, he is capable of burning the regrater in his own millet heaps, and in our time has repeatedly done it. The Government very wisely deprecates panic, but it is seriously alarmed.