The news of the week from the Famine districts shows
very little change. Distress is increasing in Burdwan and Cooch Behar, but in both provision has been made, and the Viceroy thinks his supplies adequate. The 'labourers everywhere have been ordered to take payment in grain, apparently to avoid the peculation caused by payment in money, and some 2,500,000 persons are fed by Government in one way or another. This is the ten per cent. on 25,000,000 originally prophesied by Lord Northbrook himself in his telegram on numbers, and represents the number who would have died but for direct relief. Some rain has fallen, but nothing yet of iffiportance, the " little rains " :still holding off, a bad omen for the cultivator. It is stated, moreover, in a Times telegram, that South Tirhoot has gone, and 'that Sir R. Temple is about to visit it in person. The only vital question now, however, is rain.
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