she could earn 15s. a week, with half-pay in sickness, and the money not stopped during holidays. Four shillings out of the 15s. went in rent; she said she was very thankful for the work, thought it very healthy, and could not see how she would have pulled through without it. A widow working for another vestry expressed her approbation of the work; she had tried charing and other things, but had always had bad health until she went to work in the yard, since then she had been quite well.

Young girls find the work attractive because they get better wages from the start than they would in learning a trade. A girl of 18 said she left box making, where she had earned 8s. a week, to go to the vestry yard, where ever since she had received 12s., and she added, “I found a sovereign last Christmas." These girls, after their kind, lack forethought. They hardly realise that not only do they learn nothing in a dust-yard, but, worse-it is an occupation which actually unfits them for future work of another kind. If, as is probable, the yards continue to close one after another, girls will presently find themselves turned off, with no equipment for life in the shape of any trade skill. It would be well if strong recommendations could be made to the authorities of the yards not to take into their employ any girls, or indeed young women under 30 or 35. The truest kindness would seem to prompt a prohibition of the young entering an industry which in the natural course of events is not likely to provide them with work for life.

From the experience of those who in different parts have worked in a mission for dust-women it does not appear that as a class their moral tone is lower than that of ordinary factory women. One who has laboured 20 years amongst them says she does not find them impervious to good influences, nor does she consider the women generally lower than others of their class; but at the same time she would like to see the work pass away, considering it unfit for women, and especially for girls, who nearly always fall into bad ways. Drink seems the besetting sin, and the find of a coin generally results in a prolonged spree. They do seem, however, a class apart, the work being mainly hereditary. Exaggerated notions about them are afloat. A vestry official deemed a visit to their yards or homes unsafe, they bore so rough a character; but when pressed for particulars he could only say they were seen to smoke. As that is a taste shared by many of the finest ladies in the land, it seems unfair to avoid them on that account. Undoubtedly a certain roughness of manner results from their out-door life and continual contact with men, but there is nothing to show that their standard of conduct is below the average.

Opinions of the medical officers within whose jurisdictions lie the chief groups of dust-yards do not prove that the work is unsanitary, though it might well be so.

Dr. Thomas, of Limehouse, finds "no increase in the death rate." Dr. Dudfield says: "I have never been able to find out that the occupation has any effect on the women engaged, nor am I prepared at

present to say that the presence of the dust wharves has any injurious effect on the neighbourhood. I ought to say, in respect to the latter matter, that I am still investigating the subject."

Dr. Priestly says: "There is always a difficulty in proving an actual injury to health from such offensive occupations as the sorting of refuse ; but there can be no doubt as to such a trade process being dangerous to health." He strongly recommends discontinuance on this ground of its possible danger to health.

Vestry officials repeatedly asserted that illness arising from the work was practically unknown; as it had been found with sewer men so it was with these women, the workers become in a manner immune to whatever evil hovers about their work, and, oddly enough, they form two of the healthiest classes of labourers in London. Perhaps herein lies their compensation for doing particularly distasteful portions of the world's work.

It is clear that if female labour in this occupation is summarily abolished, many will suffer who cannot earn a living in any other way. On the other hand, young women, unless prohibited in future from entering the yards, will injure themselves by beginning an industry not likely to last their lifetime, and which will unfit them for other

careers.

Meanwhile, as long as dust-yards exist improvements could be made which would materially ease the conditions of those employed. That their greatest suffering is due to the exposure which produces "cold upon cold" in its various forms, is agreed by all. If, as some of the workers suggested, the wharves were under some system of inspection, factory or County Council, sheds to work under in wet and stormy weather, could be insisted on in every yard, and where sheds do exist, but through imperfect arrangement of the heaps are not utilised, this state of things could be remedied. The hours appear to be uniformly moderate. Little can be done where the sub-contract system prevails, unless that evil itself could be abolished, and each worker brought under the direct control of the master or his manager. It is not the dust work, per se, which fags out and degrades the women, but being ground down to miserable pay and miserable conditions. In this, as in all other trades, the sweated women work the longest for the worst pay and under the worst conditions.

But, shorn of all its disagreeables, dust sorting means open air and exercise, and these are things that make for bodily health. The dust-women having discovered that open air is good and invigor ating, cling to their work mainly for that advantage. Let other work be more airy and healthful and they would no longer regret the work of the dust-yard which has undoubted disadvantages, and which, whether they realise it or not, is rapidly passing away from them.

EMILY HOBHOUSE

FAMINE ADMINISTRATION IN A BENGAL DISTRICT IN

1896-7.

My aim in this article is a comparatively modest one. I do not propose to give a history of the famine in India generally or even in any one province or district, but merely to explain as briefly as possible the machinery of famine administration in the Darbhanga district where as Collector I was in direct charge of famine operations from the beginning to the end of the famine. If I were giving a complete history of the famine even in Darbhanga I should have to describe at length the measures taken by a great landholder, the Maharaja of Darbhanga. As I am not doing so, it will suffice to say that he undertook the relief of all his rayats (tenants is perhaps the nearest English equivalent), and that for some time he was giving relief to between 25,000 and 30,000 persons daily-the maximum daily figures for a week were over 43,000—besides giving large advances of money and grain, and suspending in most cases the collection of rent.

The description I give will not hold good in all its details, for any other district even in Bengal, but it will give a general idea of the kind of work which was being done in districts covering an area of over 500,000 square miles.1

Before I come to the famine it is necessary to note that in Bengal as in all other provinces of India a Famine Code was prepared some years ago (it was revised in 1895) based on the experience of previous famines. The Code lays down the duty of each officer on a famine becoming imminent, and prescribes the various returns and reports which have to be submitted to the Collector and the higher authorities. While the experience of the last famine has shown some points in which alterations are desirable in the Code, yet it was the basis of famine operations in Bengal, though not slavishly adhered to. The work done was checked by inspections and very elaborate returns and reports. Weekly returns were submitted by all officers, and every fortnight I had to send returns and a covering report to the Commissioner. The Commissioner in turn collected the reports from all the districts in his division, and sent them with his remarks to the Government of Bengal. The Bengal Government again sent in a report for the whole province to the Government of India once a month. It has been objected that our returns and reports were too elaborate, but there can be no doubt they gave very full information, and that it was often possible by an intelligent use of them to discover where work was not going on satisfactorily.

Darbhanga had a population at the last census (1891) of 2,805,000. Probably the population is now about 3,000,000. The area is 3,335 square miles. It lies N.E. of Patna entirely to the north of the The whole of this area was not famine stricken, but parts of this district were affected.

Ganges, between the Ganges on the south and the Nepaul Terai on the north. As in most parts of Bengal the main staple is rice. The greater part of the rice crop is harvested in the cold weather-from the end of November to the beginning of January. Roughly speaking about two-thirds of the food grains grown in the district consists of rice, but large quantities of maize and various kinds of millets and pease are also grown, and, as they are considerably cheaper than rice, they form the ordinary food of the poorer classes in normal years. The population is almost entirely agricultural, and there are no manufactures of any importance except. indigo and sugar. A good deal of tobacco is grown and also some opium, but except in the two southwestern Thanas of the district its prosperity depends mainly on the rice crop.

There are three main harvests in the year, the first is known as the rabi. It is harvested towards the end of the cold weather-in February and March, and consists mainly of various kinds of millets and pease. Tobacco and opium also come to maturity about this time. The next harvest is known as the bhadai. The crops ripen during the rains in August and September. They consist mostly of maize, root crops, and an early rice crop. The main rice crop, as I have already noted, is harvested during the cold weather, most of it in December. Unfortunately, the crop statistics of the district are still very incomplete (this will be rectified by a cadastral survey now going on), but roughly the rabi produces 204,000 tons, the bhadai 226,000 tons, and the winter rice 584,000 tons of food crops, or a total of 1,014,000 tons. In Darbhanga, so far as the failure of the crops is concerned, it is not necessary to go farther back than the winter rice crop harvested in December 1895. It and the following rabi crop were both short, but the deficiency was not very serious, only about 149,000 tons. The rainy season of 1895, however, ended very unfavourably for the prosperity of the following year, as there was much less rain than usual in September, and practically none in October. All through the cold weather there was practically no rain, and the result was that the water level was excessively low before the rains commenced in the end of June 1896. The rainfall during the rainy months (middle of June to middle of October) was considerably below the normal, about two-thirds of the normal, i.e., about 30 inches against an average of nearly 45 inches; but a scanty rainfall if well distributed does no great harm. In 1896, however, the rainfall was very badly distributed, and it fell in heavy bursts with long spells of dry weather between. The result was that the rain which fell very quickly evaporated. The moisture in the soil was extremely low when the rains began, and the long breaks with bright hot days very quickly dried up any that remained after rainfall. The result was a very poor bhadai, only 132,000 tons against an average of 226,000 tons. The crop which suffered most severely, however, was the winter rice, as practically no rain fell in October, the time when it

comes into ear. The result was that the winter rice, instead of producing as usual 584,000 tons, produced only 154,000 tons. The following rabi crop of 1897 was also poor, as it produced only 126,000 tons against an average of 204,000 tons. It was saved from total destruction by very favourable winter rains. Thus the bhadai and winter crop of 1896 and the rabi of 1897 gave 412,000 tons against an average of 1,014,000 tons, or very little over two-fifths of a normal crop. So serious a failure of the crops would in any season have pressed very severely on a population dependent for its prosperity entirely on its agriculture. In the present case this was greatly aggravated by the very high price of all food grains. These high prices were of course not due to merely local causes. The crops

in 1896 failed more or less seriously over a larger area in India than on any occasion known to us in history. At one time there was distress in 1897 in districts covering a total area of over 500,000 square miles, and containing a population of over 129,000,000 (I include the whole area and population even of those districts where the distress did not extend to the whole district), while the crops were middling or very bad over a large area. There were comparatively few parts of India where they were good. In some parts of India crops had been bad several years running, and in Bandelkhand there was actually famine in 1895-96. The result of this was that on its appearing that the bhadai and the winter rice crops would fail over a large part of India in 1896 prices rapidly rose. The rise commenced in August. 1896, and famine prices had been reached by October. They were highest from April till the middle of August 1897, when the bhadai of 1897 began to come into the market, and there was a considerable fall. Between April and August 1897 the prices of the cheapest grains procurable were between two and three times the normal. Thus in July 1897 mawr, a kind of millet, and the cheapest grain ordinarily procurable in the market, was selling at about 20 lbs. to the rupee against an average of 51 lbs. ; maize, the next cheapest grain in ordinary use, was for a considerable period scarcely procurable in the market; when it was procurable, it sold at between 18 lbs. and 20 lbs. to the rupee against an average of 45 lbs. to 47 lbs. to the rupee. As a matter of fact, the cheapest grains were scarcely in the market, and even the poorest classes to whom rice is ordinarily a luxury, could buy little but common rice at from 15 lbs. to 18 lbs. the rupee against a normal price of 31 lbs. to 34 lbs. the rupee. Thus the majority of the poorest classes were obliged to purchase the greater part of their food at from 15 lbs. to 18 lbs. a rupee, while in ordinary years they would have got from 51 lbs. to 55 lbs. for the same sum.

In Darbhanga it was not till towards the end of August that serious apprehensions of famine began, and it was not till the end of September that it became certain the winter rice would fail unless there was good rain in October. As no rain fell by the 18th of that month it became No. 39.-VOL. X.

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