Daily Evening Bulletin

AGAIN STARVING.

Another Winter of Destitution For the People of Labrador.

St. Johns, N. F., Aug. 15.—Sandwich Table, Rocky Porcupine and Esquimaux bays, on the Labrador coast, are again the scenes of the greatest destitution and starvation. The unfortunate people last winter passed through a terrible ordeal, such as human beings are seldom called upon to experience, and if the Newfoundland and Canadian governments do not come to the rescue in time the result of another winter can be imagined. Last winter the mercury went down to 40 degrees below zero. Numbers of the inhabitants became sick and emaciated from living on sea weed and rock cod, for which they had to travel in some cases many miles. One melancholy case is reported of the head of a family who from sheer hunger had become insane and attempted to eat his boots. Many of the inhabitants fled as from a plague-stricken land.

There is now no doubt that last winter's experience will be repeated. The outside world cannot know of the masses of suffering humanity who are perishing on these lone rocks, and it may be that succor and aid will come too late. The people are not represented in parliament, although taxed, and thus have no one to plead their cause. For nine months navigation is closed, and if anything is to be done it must be done quickly. The people now are actually selling their guns, bedding and skins to the trades for a few provisions. Hundreds of families would gladly leave if they had means to travel. Scores of stores and houses have, during the past few months, been broken into by the hungry hundreds, and provisions and merchandise taken, those who commit these deeds justifying them on the ground that they are starving.