The Famine In India

Therc is no chango for the botter ín India. The famine has not abatcd, und aftairs every wherc are becoming critical. The priee of graiu is advancing, most of the Burmesc rice-crop has been secnred for English consumption, and there is no rain. The condition of the people on the relief works is gradually deteriorating. In eight districts, where üie animal dcath-rate of the winter senson is not usunlly moro than 20 per 1,000, it rangod from 37.3 to 1 18.3 in December and from G2.6 to 118.7 in Jan uary. Many of the deaths are due to starvation, or diseases engoudcred by starvation, but these are debited to " cholera." The best authorities estinuite tlie tokd loss of life which will follow from famine at 1,000,000, and tliink that the Madras census of 1881, with its population of 30,000,000 souls, will sliow, if not a retrograde a stationary population. A fact is cited by the London Times correspondent which upsets the assertion that periodical famines are necessary to keep down the redundant popnlntion of Hindostán. The remarks on this head, the correspondent holds, would be pertinent to the subject if the lamine liad displaycel itself in the most thickly-populated district of the country, bilt, as a matter of fact, the most thickly-populated dietriots haye been able not only to gTow food enough for thoir own necessities, but to export to ptebQa where there was scarcity. There is no evidonee of any value to show that the population of India is beyoud the capacity of the land to support. Every pound of graiu eonsuined in the lamine tracfcof the South during the present scarcity lias been supplied by ludia itself ; and, while an enormous local failure of crops over au arca iulmbited by 20,000,000 of people has provailt'd, India lias still ueon able to ndd largely to her exporta oí wheat to Europe.