The Famine in North Persia.
Mrs. Dr. Benj. Labaree, one of the American missionaries in Ooroomiah, writes as follows in a letter printed in an English paper: “The one absorbing theme here now is the starving poor, and what can be done for them. The price of flour is now £4 the load of about five bushels (320 lbs.) Last year at this time the price was twelve shillings per load. All food is equally high in proportion, and it is utterly impossible for the people to maintain themselves. A man’s wages are sevenpence a day; a woman’s, threepence-halfpenny. But at this season there is little or no work. Many are starving, and the suffering of multitudes is dreadful. Very many have sold everything which they had of apparel, bedding and cooking utensils, and after the small quantity of food which they thus obtained is exhausted, their condition is deplorable, with neither food, clothing, nor fuel. A large proportion of the families in the village just below us have torn down their houses, in order to sell the timbers, and have gone down to the plain, seeking shelter in stables, or any place which they can find. Their opportunities for getting little jobs of work, or for begging, are greater than here on the mountains. We have heard of a number of instances in which, after having disposed of everything available, the head of the family has mixed arsenic with the last food, and destroyed the whole household. Last week I was told of a family of eight thus poisoned, and the next day heard of another case in which two persons had died from the effects of the arsenic, and two were very low. The mission, some time ago, opened a soup kitchen, where the first forty persons who come are served with one meal daily. This is but a drop in the bucket. The swarm of beggars is innumerable, and constantly increasing. So far as we have the means to furnish work, we dispense charity in this way, furnishing wool or cotton to spin and weave, or putting men to work on the roads or college grounds. We are asking the Lord to send us help.”