Labrador has, according to one alarming account, suffered not only
from an unprecedentedly severe spring and summer, but from a return of winter in July, and the result was reported to have been terrible suffering to the inhabitants. It is said that at least 3,500 persons died of starvation daring the spring and summer, and that a great snowstorm on July 19th, followed by the consolidation of pack-ice in Hudson's Bay, destroyed all the tracks, and cut off from 10,000 to 15,000 persons from all the sources of supply. Indeed, the fish, which are their chief means of subsistence, were asserted to have failed them. Even the polar bears had been driven South in herds by want of food, and the Esquimanz were so famished that they ate the dead bodies of the Indians when they could get then-. If this account be true, no such spring and summer have been known within the present generation as the unfortunate settlers in Labrador have experienced and are now experiencing ; nor would it seem possible to reach them with supplies in time to save them from starvation. The Daily News of Friday, how- ever, throws great doubt over this sensational rumour, and holds that at least it is greatly exaggerated.
Previous page
