In 3lysore the January census showed that about 25 per cent., or one-fourth, of the popula tion bad melted away, equal to 1,250,000 souls.
In Bombay the average deaths had been 32,909 ; but in tho year 1876-77 the mortality was 149,053, and there were 32,054 ditninished births.
In Ondh, the N.W. Provinces, the Panjab, and Central Provinces, the deaths were abnormally great.
Great efforts were made to relieve tho famine stricken. The people of Great Britain subscribed about i800,000 ; the Govermuent of India laid out about i10,000,000; and private individuals and the public servants in India vied with each other in efforts to save life.
The loss in cattle was very great. In Bellary the Madras Board of Revenue considered it unlikely that more than 25 per cent. of non-agricultural cattle, and from 60 to 70 per cent. of the agricultural cattle, would survive.
An appalling famine prevailed in the /I.E. parts of China, chiefly in tho province. of Shan-si and lIo-ilail ; out of a population of 70 millions, 9 millions of pcoplo were reported to be destitute, and 7 million persons In all are computed to have died. The province of Shan-si alone is said to have lost 600,000 inhabitants in ono winter. 1Vomen, girls, and boys were sold In the market for 2 to 5 dollar, each, and many killed their children and then themielves. It was severest inland from the Yang-tzo to near Pekin, and east to Corea. In Shan-si, in 1877, the dead could not get a btu-ial; they were too many, and none could afford the ex pense, so they were east daily into largo pits. The people at Shan-si, in 1878, wero maid to be living on the corpses of their fellow-beings who (lied of starvation I And the strong were killing the weak for tho sako of obtaining their flesh for food. It was accompanied by loci:lats.
In liaslunir, also, through the year 1878 it was very severe. The last previous famine in this state was about the middle of the 18th century.
1879, The swarms of rats which from January to March swept through the country between Sind and Madras, aro stated by a contemporary to have destroyed quite 50 per cent. of the crops in the agri
cultural land which they passed over. The length of their journey was not less than 1000 miles.
Sir Arthur Cotton estimated that two acres of rice land will feed seven people for a year ; and 3fr. Fischer considered that a fiunily of fire will consume under 6 lbs. -of grain per diem. The fields of India yield abundance of the finer grains, such as rice and wheat, but, except in Burma, these aro used only by the well-to-do classes, the producers living on the coarser grains, pulses, and millets. And food at three times its ordinary price, at a season when some months must elapse without relief, means famine in the great majority of cases; while in some cases famine comes long before that rate is reached. When the rate rises to four times the ordinary standard, it is probably accompanied by famine of a very severe description. After the 1877-78 famine in India, a commission was appointed to report how Government might by its action diminish the severity of famines.' They calculated that India regularly yields a surplus of food, more than enough to supply a dearth in any particular district. But they avowed their conviction of the incapacity of 'any huinan endeavours altogether to prevent an increase of mortality during a severe famine.' In 1873 alone, an outlay of six millions and a half sterling averted an increase of mortality. But with the solitary exception of 1873, famine in India has been too strong for the State to bar its devastations. For a famine at Cawnpur, a million and a half sterling of subscriptions was realized and distributed ; 1300 were fed daily, but 1200 persons died.
A larger proportionate expenditure was made by the State on the relief of the famine in Orissa in 1866 than on any previous occasion, yet nearly a million persons died.
By the famine of 1868-69 in tho N.1V. l'rovinces and the Panjab, and by the diseases which are the followers of famine, though enornious sums were spent on relief, 1,200,000 lives wereiost.