Of course it may be said in favour of the money-lender that he is obliged to charge these high rates, to cover the extra risk, and that as a rule, he is generally prepared to forego half his legal claim when the time for payment comes. I am aware also that the subject has long occupied the earnest attention of Government, and that in some parts of the country enactments have been introduced for the relief of poor debtors. But these are only local and the evil is universal. A judicial Solon is sadly needed who shall rise up and boldly face the evil. The extortions of usurers have led to revolutions before now, and it seems high time for an enlightened Government to do something on a large scale for the abatement of the evil, if only by an absolute refusal to enforce any such usurious contracts. But I have only mentioned the subject, because it plays a specially important part in the present depressed condition of the submerged masses. In the following pages I hope among other things to be able to cast some rays of light into this valley of the shadow of debt, if not of death. CHAPTER IX. THE LAND OF FAMINE. Any review of Darkest India would be incomplete without some mention of the widespread and calamitous famines which periodically devastate the country and which reappear from time to time with terrible certainty. In a country where so large a proportion of the population is agricultural, and where the poor are almost entirely paid in kind, the failure of a single crop means the most terrible scarcity and privation for those who even in time of plenty live at best but a hand-to-mouth existence. And when the failure is repeated famine faces the poverty-stricken masses, and they are frequently swept off by thousands. In the terrible Madras famine of 1877 to 1878, several millions perished, in spite of the relief works and charitable agencies which hastened to their assistance. When the census of 1881 came to be taken, it was found that in this part of India, instead of the population having largely increased, as was everywhere else the case, there had been a diminution of two per cent as compared with the census of 1871. It may be said that such famines are not frequent and we are thankful to admit that this is so. Yet scarcely a year passes without some part of India suffering severely from partial droughts. Only last year hundreds of poor starving wretches, crowded into Bombay from Kattiyawar, and were for weeks encamped on the Esplanade, an abject multitude, dependent on the charity of the rich. And yet it was "no famine" that had driven them hundreds of miles from their homes, but "_only_ a scarcity."