INDIAN FAMINES - Institute for Social and Economic Change

AND PRESS CRITICISM. 167
There is still the third general subject, to
which I will here refer but briefly, as it was
before noticed in Chapter III. It has been
frequently asserted that many more starvation
deaths occur than are officially reported. One
correspondent wrote that a death may be attributed
to dysentery, fever, &c., but that when
want of food brought on the disease, it was nevertheless
a starvation death. True, but it would
first be necessary to prove that Government refused
the man food, or did not exert itself to find
out starving people. There are very many such
deaths which would have been prevented had
the sufferers only been at the trouble to make
their cases known. In attempting to mitigate
the effects of famine, as described in the next
chapter, many instances of perverse action will
be met with, but for which much suffering and
anxiety would have been avoided.
Before proceeding to discuss in detail the
statements and reports of newspapers, I wish to
preface my remarks upon them by saying that
I have no intention whatever (If being personal.
Nevertheless, from the very nature of the case,
cannot avoid noticing individual statements,