3-065-571 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Impending Famine in Bengal: a Bengalee beniah or grain-seller, 1874. The newspapers present...a sorrowful controversy...upon the sufficiency of the measures for relieving the terrible distress presently expected from the failure of the rice and grain crops in Bengal. We are anxious to...direct public attention to the subject...we hope that the British Government of India will be wisely advised to use its fullest powers...in the most judicious manner...our front-page Engraving...represents the common Baniah, or grain-seller, weighing out a small quantity of corn for his poor customers in the street or market. Rice is the chief article of food only in Lower Bengal...The inhabitants of the Upper Provinces, and of Central India, subsist upon other kinds of grain, such as wheat, barley, maize, and pease, or the cheaper grain called bajira, which is much used by the labouring classes. They seldom taste any kind of flesh-meat, though it is an error to suppose that animal food is entirely prohibited by the Hindoo religion. Sugar, curdled milk, and boiled butter or ghee, may be used by those who can afford such luxuries to flavour their rice or porridge'. From "Illustrated London News", 1874.