FAMINE IN TURKEY | AdventAI

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, March 4, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 10

FAMINE IN TURKEY.

WHILE the Sultan shuts himself up in Yildiz Kiosk, surrounded by place-hunting pachas, who take care that nothing unpleasant shall reach the royal ears, the country is progressing from bad to worse. Misery, destitution, and famine have it all their own way in the provinces. From Europe and Asia comes the cry of distress; letters from Erzeroum give a fearful picture of the condition of several surrounding districts. At Bayazid people have gone mad from hunger, and many have been poisoned by eating roots and mosses. Grain is forbidden to cross the border from Persia and Russia, and the local governor is grinding three years’ taxes from the starving peasantry, his excuse being that the money is required for Constantinople. The vali, or governor-general, looks on with folded hands, and estimates that there is enough grain in the province to feed all the inhabitants. Possibly the quantity exists, but it is locked up in the granaries of the tithe-collectors or speculators, and might as well be in the heart of Africa, as far as the people are concerned. But the governor has ordered a list to be made out of the poorest; judging from experience in such matters, the officers employed will take a month to draw up this list, and by that time the destitute will be dead, and the commissioners—for the Turks can do nothing without a commission—sent to verify the list will report that they have not been able to find the people said to be in distress. The Turks give alms freely to professional beggars, to sturdy cripples and stout impostors; but to organize systematic relief they are incapable. A famine is kismet, and it is wrong to fly in the face of providence. The doctrine is consolatory for those who can believe in it, but it smacks a little of selfishness. On foreign aid alone must the wretched rely, and turn their imploring eyes to the alleviators of their distress of 1875—the British and Americans.—Boston Herald, Feb. 23.