-or don't feel enough how naughty Irene behaved, and how wrong it was of John to do anything without telling you, or that I don't think you are doing right in feeling that after such an example to the other girls it would not do for her to stay in your establishment. I am sure, dear daughter, you have always made all your rules, and managed everything as you thought would be best for the dear children,-all of them. And it is bad that sometimes what would be good for one can't be done for the sake of the others, and you have felt it so.

"I know you feel anxious about Irene more than you would, because she is an orphan, and so likely to manage to get into mischief; and I have been thinking it will not be very easy for Mrs. Weatherill to find just such a home as she and you will feel quite satisfied with-I mean, to find it quickly; and you want her to go soon, and yet would be very unhappy if you thought she was not safe cared for. Now I have been thinking it would be a relief to you, and give more time for looking out for something just suitable, if Irene came to me for a few weeks. Mr. Palmer says he should not mind at all; he is fond of young people,-it would make him feel young again to have a child in the house a bit. Of course I shall take care to let her know that I think she was very, very naughty, and behaved most ungrateful to you after all your goodness. And I shall not allow her to be idle; and it happens that a lady, who lives two doors away, has just lost her nursery-governess, who has got a better situation; and I spoke to her about Irene, and if she should come to me she would be very glad to have some one, just for a few weeks to give her time to look out at leisure.

"So I thought, if nothing else has been settled, her coming here to me might be convenient for my neighbour, and for Mrs. Weatherill, and good for the child, and what you know, dear Charlotte, I care for a very great deal, may relieve you of one of the many, many worries of your harassing work. I wish, dear daughter, I could have stayed to help you, and yet have been here too; for Mr. Palmer is not young, you know, and he felt the loneliness so bad.-and we are very happy, very happy indeed. But, there, it is foolish talking of what can't be.

"Perhaps you would write to Mrs. Weatherill, and, if she has found nothing, and will trust her a bit with me, the child can come as soon as is convenient to you to send her. What a long letter. Excuse all blunders. I am glad I was able to give you a good education, and that you have used it so well. I must stop all in a hurry, or dinner will be late, and my husband does not like that, though even that would not make him cross.

"With much love, my own dear daughter,-Your loving mother, "CHARLOTTE PALMER."

Within a week after the receipt of this letter, Irene found herself an inmate of Fernbank Villa, a cheerful house on the outskirts of a pleasant country town, situated some eighteen miles to the south-east of Westhaven. And very much rejoiced she was by the kindly welcome accorded to her there, notwithstanding Mrs. Palmer's sincere endeavour to fulfil her promise to her daughter, and to speak with due severity of the evil behaviour which had led to Irene's removal from Portsmouth Square.

(To be continued.)

INDIAN FAMINES.-II.

BY THE REV. J. E. SLATER, OF MADRAS.

IN our last paper, when trying to understand why the Indian famines come, we saw it was not necessary to charge the people of the country with any special wickedness; but that we had to admit, on the part of the people and their rulers, grave misconduct in respect to certain national, social, and material interests. With unmistakable severity, but with a severity that has its root in love and goodness, God intends by these scourges to point out these grievous evils, in order that we may remedy them.

It is, of course, beyond human power to control the rainfall, with the failure of which the last famine set in. But it is highly probable that it is within the scope of science to predict the years when a deficient rainfall may be expected. Again, it is an ascertained fact that large masses of wooded land exercise a very important influence on the rainfall in any particular district; and if we wilfully cut down our forests and jungles, we may rest assured we shall suffer for it, as has been so strikingly the case in the treeless Deccan, and more recently in Northern Chira, in a decreased supply of rain. It must be borne in mind, however, that famine does not necessarily follow on a failure of the rainfall. Numbers of homes in India have been unvisited by distress, though the heavens have been brass above them just as much as above the homes of others. Famine is famine only to the poor. Want and starvation are the inevitable results of a decrease in the supply of ordinary food, and a corresponding increase in prices-a condition of things that tells at once, and most disastrously, on a population already living in extreme poverty. In proportion as there is a greater equalisation of wealth and comfort in any country, which

means, in proportion as class-distinctions, class privileges cease to be the ruling system of freedom, self-respect and education are extended to the whole community, in that proportion will such a calamity as famine cease to settle on any one particular class. We are no communists; but nations that will not let the heavenly principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, enter in, to a large extent, and mould their life, must be doomed to suffer repeated national disasters. Priestcraft and ignorance, ignorance and poverty, poverty and suffering, are ever linked together in a dismal chain of successive evils. But to turn to remedial measures of a more tangible nature. Scarcity of grain in any given district results, obviously, from two things-the impoverished condition of the soil itself, and the absence of a proper system of communication by which a surplus of grain from another part may be conveyed. The rainfall fails, and a famine comes. The Indian ryot is so poor that the very manure which ought to go to nourish the soil has to be dried and used for fuel. The land is therefore starved. It is evident the people want capital with which to improve their fields. Hitherto, the custom has been to extract a large revenue from the land, without making it any adequate return. And the people cannot make bricks without straw. Agriculture and trade -in which direction without doubt the material improvement of the country lies, need to be taken up by the middle classes; and these pursuits with proper training, would afford for numbers a livelihood as respectable and far more profitable than the present overcrowded field of Government employ.

Then, again, the ground must have water; and, if you cannot be sure of getting it from the clouds, you must treasure it in tanks; you must cut canals, you must dig wells. Here, it is to be feared, there has been grave neglect. There are thousands of tanks scattered over India, built by its former rulers. In Madras, and especially in Mysore, there is the vast number of 37,600 tanks; ranging from the size of a village reservoir to a lake of 14 square miles. Have these been preserved by the Government as they should have been? How many new ones have been lately built? Have the people themselves been stimulated to dig wells? Have funds been furnished them, in their poverty, to encourage them to do so? It has been the opinion of great authorities that with a thorough system of irrigation, famines would be impossible. There can be no doubt that, in many places, canal irrigation is an invaluable means of insurance. In the Kurnool District in South India, crops worth nearly a million sterling were saved by means of a canal between Kurnool and Cuddapah. In the Behar famine, by introducing water into the midst of the distressed districts, as far as the canal then in progress admitted, there was raised a crop of 70,000

tons of food, valued at £580,000, a sum which nearly met the entire cost of the work. The irrigation works in the low countries of the Madras Presidency are said to have produced large returns. The Cauvery Delta, one of the earliest English works, is said to have yielded 86 per cent., the Godavery Delta 21 per cent., and the Kishna Delta 15 per cent.

But irrigation does not admit of universal application; and all undertakings are not equally successful. The Madras Irrigation Company's Canal and the Orissa canal system, have not only made no return, but have not paid back the money expended on them. It must be remembered, too, that canal tanks which depend on the rainfall for their supply of water, will be of little service in preventing drought. In Northern India there are large rivers to fall back upon, fed by the ever melting snows of the Himalayas. But in the Madras Presidency there are only three or four rivers whose waters are independent of the local rainfall, and could therefore continue for some time to feed canals and tanks in seasons of dearth.

It is necessary, therefore, that something else be done; and that, either the grain of the years of plenty should be laid up in store over the country, as it was in Egypt in the days of Joseph, as it used to be formerly, to some extent, in India-sufficient grain for, say, one year's consumption in the several districts; and it is a remarkable fact that the only famine that has been successfully grappled with in India-the Behar famine-was met by this ancient custom of storing grain; or that, by reason of roads and railroads, there should be facilities for the cheap and rapid carriage of the surplus produce of one district to meet the deficiency of another; and if it be true that there is always as much food in the country as is needed to supply the want of the population, then famine, in the sense of absolute want of food, would be unknown. And that the empire can, from its own soil, feed itself, seems likely, since it is stated on good authority, that in the most thickly populated provinces there are from fifty to eighty acres of land under cultivation to every hundred persons, and that out of these, sixty-five to seventy acres are ander food crops. The opening up of the country by means of railways, the development of trade and manufactures, and an improved system of land tenure, will afford greater securities against famine than any system of irrigation, valuable as that preventive measure undoubtedly is in certain districts.

With reference to the noble measures taken to grapple with the recent evil when it was once amongst the people, we can only say they were beyond all praise. But no human schemes are perfect; and it should certainly be an easier matter to avoid the repetition

of mistakes here, than it is to prevent the recurrence of famines themselves.

The enormous mortality that took place during the earlier months of the last famine is notorious. The Government declared that life must be saved at any cost; and the question necessarily forces itself, was this humane policy practically carried out ? How was it that such numbers perished? Have we here learnt the lesson, at a terribly costly price, that a too stringent economy in the scale of relief wages at such a time, means degeneracy and death to thousands?

Again, the dwellers in Madras and other large towns will not soon forget the swarms of miserable creatures that so long filled the streets, greatly to the detriment of the public health. Was this unavoidable ? Might not district officers have been at the outset more familiar with local distress, and after a little organising, have relieved the people on the spot? Does the elaborate system by which the revenue is administered guarantee a real knowledge of the peasantry on the part of its officials? Perhaps there is more need of Mr. Bright's "decentralisation" scheme than is commonly admitted; and it is possible that his plan of five or six independent Presidencies, by which the Government might be brought nearer the people, is not so Utopian after all.

We now come to the question, What good may we hope will come from such terrible disasters ? It is a blessing to be able to reflect that the famine of 1877-78, has not been an event of unmitigated evil, but that, on the contrary, much real good is calculated to follow from it.

There are doubtless times in the lives of all of us when the dark problems of human existence fairly overpower us; when we stand sick and dumb before ghastly sights of want and misery, and, in the mournful words of Matthew Arnold, are ready to declare that "the world which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;"

and one can feel nothing of

"that blessed mood

In which the burden of the mystery,

In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world

Is lightened."

It is even assumed by some that the existence of so much calamity and suffering in the world is itself sufficient to prove the non-existence of a benevolent Ruler of the universe. Where is the benevolence, they say, in famines, pestilences, earthquakes, and