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THE

FAMINE CAMPAIGN IN

SOUTHERN INDIA

(MADRAS AND BOMBAY PRESIDENCIES AND PROVINCE OF MYSORE)

1876-1878

BY

WILLIAM DIGBY

HONORARY SECRETARY INDIAN FAMINE RELIEF FUND

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. I.

PUBLIC

LONDON

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

All rights reserved

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35 X 830

We say that human life shall be saved at any cost

and at any effort; no man, woman, or child shall die of starvation. Distress they must often suffer; we cannot save them from that. We wish we could do more, but we must be content with saving life and preventing extreme suffering?

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA, Jan. 1877.

PREFACE.

IT is too soon to write a history of the famine campaign in India of 1876-1878. But it is not a day too soon to gather together the particulars of the various policies adopted in Madras, Bombay, and Mysore, while the facts are still fresh in men's memories, and the minutiae of policy and administration are available, that these may remain on record to enable the historian to base his judgment upon a trustworthy narrative of facts. This it has been my chief object in the following pages to supply. Favoured by the Government of India, the Madras Government, and the Mysore Famine Commissioner, not only with the thousands of reports and orders which were issued during the campaign against famine, but also with copies of documents which were not made public, I have endeavoured from these materials and such other trustworthy evidence as came under my own notice, or could be obtained by enquiry, to place in a clear white light the events of a sad and troublous period in Southern Indian annals. I have naught extenuated nor aught set down in malice.

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