Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 November 1879 — STARVATION. [ARTICLE]

STARVATION.

A Horrible Tale from the Far North —People Dying by the Hundred from Ruin and Starva. tion. The schooner Pauline Collins has arrived at San Francisco from the Arctic Ocean. Her captain, Tucker Sands, reports a frighful story from St. Lawrence Island, in Behring Sea. Almost the entire population of the southeastern end of the island have perished from starvation. A party landed from the Collins, and were horrified to find 250 corpses in one field. The living had carried the dead away from the huts until at length, overcome themselves, they in turn died in the huts and so remained. Everywhere the scene was frightful. One little girl the captain speaks of seeing stiff in death, with her head resting on her hand, while her body leaned over the remains of a whale. Capt. Sands attributes their starva tion to rum. Nearly every trader goei to the Arctic loaded with it, ana sc long as the liquor lasts the natives will not go fishing. Then it is too late and starvation follows. On the northwest end of the island about 200 natives are still alive. He says that the revenue steam cutters are of no use to stop this traffic. The traders see the smoke and get out of the way.