INDIAN FAMINES - Institute for Social and Economic Change

RECENT FAJf['VES. 45
vail in a ratio depending on the proportion of
the effective arrangements undertaken. There
is no reason, however, why elaborate statistics
on this head should not be compiled from
the vast stores of material which will be available.
With over seventy years of administration in
Bengal, and nearly forty in the "Ceded Provinces,"
our system of rule had developed itself
to a considerable extent. Our jails at this
period of drought seem to have enjoyed a popularity
with which they are seldom credited. It
appears that "the destitute peasants became alive
to the fact that the commission of some trifling
crime would insure them food at any rate." *
But the jails, unfortunately, could only hold a
limited number, and the perpetration, therefore,
of a "trifling crime" was no longer of any service.
The lower classes in many districts broke
out into open violence, and plundered storehouses,
transports of grain, and adopted any
other process that was likely to afford relief to
the pangs of their craving hunger. The police
had to be considerably increased, but matters
• Girdlestone.