The accounts of the Indian famine are still heart-breaking. Not
only have the numbers in receipt of relief risen to the unprecedented figure of five million three hundred thousand, but the fiction that the relief prevents actual death from starvation is abandoned. In the native States especially, such as Guzerat and the principalities of Rajpootana, the residuum is perishing in thousands, the mortality among male children being especially heavy. The fathers do most for the little girls in hopes of marriage gifts. Mr. Smeaton, who was specially deputed to report, describes horrible scenes which he has seen, and adds, what we are all so apt to forget, that all draught animals being dead of hunger, the people can only cultivate by yoking themselves and their wives to the ploughs. For the State to feed the animals is impossible, as the necessary amount of forage could neither be collected nor moved, but large assistance ought to be given towards replacing the animals, none of which, remember, have been eaten. For- tunately, the rains are nearly due, but if they do not come God help Central India, for the help of man will be in vain. Even as it is the final report on the effect of the famine in Guzerat will be an awful document. The population have, it is believed, suffered more than this country suffered in the " Black Death."
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