was afforded him by those in authority, and every opportunity of obtaining exact information. He travelled with a Kodak, and took in his progress pictures of the worst cases that came under his observation. Now that the result of these is given in a book, the authority of which none will dream of disputing, the nature and extent of the suffering of famine-stricken races of India become apparent, and we can no longer hug ourselves, after our wont, in comfortable delusion. I have, of course, no power to reproduce the pictures which constitute the most terrible portion of Mr. Merewether's appeal, if such it may be considered. He shows us, however, in pictures the fidelity of which is no more to be disputed than the sadness, a number of natives of Central and North-Western India who are, one may say literally, skeletons covered with skin, with limbs in which the bones are as easily traceable as if they were uncovered. I must be pardoned, in the absence of ocular demonstration, for giving in an abridged form one or two of Mr. Merewether's assertions :

Starvation kills Indians very slowly; the present famine had been preceded by years of... what would be starvation in white men's countries; . . . the bodies of the victims had been reduced gradually, but still life lingered, if that can be called life which enabled them to draw breath and move feebly the bones that were their legs and arms. The fat of their bodies had first been consumed, leaving only gristle and sinew. Finally (what I should not have supposed possible) these also were attacked; there are left the shrunken veins, the nerves, which now but imperfectly transmit the impulse from the brain, which is itself anæmic and scarcely human; the wasted internal organs, and the skin, which is shrivelled, cold, and dry to the touch. . . . As for the faces of the children . . the dark skin is stretched on a fleshless skull, the lips are mere skin and shrunk back from the teeth; the eyes glimmer dimly in hollow sockets, unless, as is often the case, they have been eaten away by the ophthalmia which is among the consequences of starvation. The neck is hardly larger than the spinal column and insecurely supports the skull. The scalp is frequently attacked by a disease which completely covers it with a kind of thick, hard, whitish scab—a skull-cap of death. The inside of the mouth is subject to ulcerous swellings, hard and painful, which force it open, prevent the swallowing of food, and discharge a viscid matter. The bones of the legs are often raw with ulcers, on which swarms of flies settle and feed. Well (says Mr. Merewether, the worst of whose description I have omitted out of regard to my readers), this is starvation.

T

ENGLISH DEALING WITH INDIA.

HE foregoing picture, taken at Mirgang, I will supplement with a record at Bilaspur, my excuse being that this is taken from what is a supposedly charitable institution in which relief was being doled out, over 600 wretches being crowded into a space sufficient

perhaps for a fourth of the number. appalling :

The filth and stench were

Outside the pale I found a man dying of dysentery absolutely uncared for. A couple of yards away lay the still warm corpse of a man from which the flies arose in myriads as I approached to examine him. A group of poor skeletons, scarcely human beings, were squatting close by worn down by suffering and disease to the last stage of callousness and apathy. I questioned them about this man, and they replied, "Yes, sahib, he is dead. He crawled here this morning, but was too late for the morning meal, and he has died. He told me he had had no food for four days." Here was a man who died of starvation under the very eyes of the authorities, and within hand-grasp of the food which might possibly have saved his life. . . . Inside the walls, if one can call the thorn fence such, the sights were of the most horrible and pitiable description, and I say advisedly and with due reason, from personal observation, that the inmates of this supposedly charitable institution were being condemned to a horrible and lingering death. Here I pause, not because the subject is exhausted. I could fill pages with similar matter. Why have I brought these terrible sights before my readers? Because the truth in these and other things rarely reaches a feeling, disinterested, charitable, and responsible world. The same pen that supplies the passages I have quoted writes that the officials had not sufficiently grasped the real importance of the situation. He adds: "From high quarters the hookum [order] had gone forth, there was to be no famine in Central India, and the subordinates of Government were trying to carry out the order." It is not of Cuba I am speaking, nor of Spanish dominion. It is of English rule and England's India.

SYLVANUS URBAN.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

SEPTEMBER 1898.

M

SHADOWS.

BY EMILY CONSTANCE COOK.

Yet ah, that Spring should vanish with the rose !
That youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close!
-The nightingale that in the branches sang,

Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows?

AMIE was dying.

In the pretty, peaceful room opening on to the garden, amidst all the delightful sights and sounds of summer, Mamie had to die.

Only seventeen years old, poor Mamie! with all her pleasures and joys and hopes, like the Fata Morgana, a delusive dream, never to be realised, missing—

Honour, labour, rest,

And the warmth of a babe's mouth

At the blossom of her breast.

At the foot of Mamie's little bed her mother sat, with bowed head; beside her was a grey-robed Sister from the nursing home; hardly a sound broke the June stillness.

Mamie did not want to die; she wanted very, very much to live. She enjoyed life; she liked going out to dances and parties; she liked being admired; she liked being thought clever; she wanted to grow up to be a great genius-but, above all, she wanted to win the prize in her examination. She had worked so hard for it, and had thought of nothing else for so long; it did seem hard that she should die before she could get it.

The tassel of the window blind, waving gently to and fro, made

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a pattern of light and shade on Mamie's bed; her fingers played restlessly with the sheet. Oh! how tired she was of that particular pattern! How long, how long it seemed that she had been in bed! Many, many days-first days of pain, fever, and tossing to and fro, days when she knew she had been cross and fretful to everybody— and now only weakness and feeling, oh! so tired.

The light from the garden flickers and fades; Mamie opens her eyes again; a grey-headed doctor is standing by her bed; he looks grave; he seems to be talking to somebody.

"Has the class-list come out yet?" asks Mamie, rousing herself. She asks this question regularly every day. "No? Then perhaps you can tell me tell me the principal exports of Bombay? And I can't, no, I never can remember the name of the capital of the Isle of Wight."

Mamie relapses into a doze. doctor, holding her thin little wrist. to sob.

Over-pressure," mutters the Somebody in the room seems

Now it is darkness again. Mamie does not know how long she has been asleep. Some one-the Sister-is giving her a drink. Mamie does not want anything; she only wishes they would leave her alone.

Why are the birds awake so early? Ah, it is morning again. Mamie is always glad when it is light enough to count the row of bottles on the shelf-anything but that tiresome pattern of the blind on the bed. Oh, that ugly blind! But some one draws it up, and "visions of the world appear" from outside; the delicious scents of June float in through the French windows from the lawn there. A little sparrow hops in, impertinently chirping. Mamie turns her head to watch him. Happy little sparrow! he has not got to die yet. Psalm ?" says a soft voice. It is the Sister. She is so tired, tired; and it makes her

"Shall I read

Mamie does not answer.
head ache to think. She listens mechanically:-

"Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty; they shall behold the land that is very far off."

Can that be the nurse reading? and how far distant her voice sounds! Mamie raises her eyes and sees-not the far away country, but the sweet mystic eyes of the Child in the arms of the Sistine Madonna, watching her from across the room. "Poor Mamie," the Child seems to say—so wistful are His eyes, so divine His pity.

Mamie looks at the Child, and she feels that it will understand her. Has she worked so hard, all these years, for nothing? Is she to lose the prize just as it is within her grasp? What, then, was the

use-what was the use of it all? Mamie had made such plans for the future, she was to be beautiful, clever, a genius-yes, the greatest genius the world had ever seen. Everyone would be proud of her, everyone would love her-ah! how charming and how great she would be and now this was the end of it all? What was the use, indeed?

Mamie tosses restlessly to and fro; her spirit "flutters and fumes for breath"; her poor little white soul cries out against extinction. Is that the doctor again? Who said "no hope"? Yes, yes, there shall be hope. Mamie will live.

"When thou goest through the darkness I will be with thee."

Ah yes, Mamie wants some one with her in the dark. She has always been afraid of the dark-Who was that sobbing? Mamie tries to ask, but she cannot speak; with all her strength she cries in her heart for life. And the Divine Child in the picture seems to bend forward and say, "Poor Mamie, you shall live. You shall see that life itself is only sorrow. Go to sleep and dream."

And Mamie falls asleep, and dreams.

It seems to her that she is well and strong again. Her cheeks are rosy; there is light in her eyes and lips. She will not trouble about learning or examinations any more. They are empty, after all. That was not what life was given for. No, she will live, and love. Since she must marry somebody, she will marry Tom-it is easy to choose, since so many boys have said they liked her. They walk about the meadows hand-in-hand and are happy. Then they are married, and the organ is played in church, and Mamie has pretty frocks, and everyone kisses her. The frocks are really nicer than Tom is. Tom does not seem always so nice after they are married as he was before. Sometimes they quarrel, sometimes Mamie cries, and her pretty eyes are red. And a faint shadow gathers at the end of the room, and rolls slowly towards Mamie. And Mamie knows it is the Shadow of Disappointment. And the Shadow passes, but it leaves two little wrinkles on Mamie's pure white brow.

"Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity."

Whose was that voice in serious monotone? Is it the nurse? No, Mamie has no nurse. . . . She is well and strong. . . . But time goes on, and now Mamie has a baby. A little, dear, soft baby who cuddles up to her and croons, with blue eyes and fluffy, golden hair like the angels. Oh! how Mamie loves the baby! She clutches it tightly, she holds it to her breast, she opens her little frilled nightgown-ah! poor little breast, so wasted and thin! The baby cries;