THE FAMINES OF THE WORLD: PAST AND PRESENT. [Being Two Papers Read before the Statistical Society of London in 1878 PREFACE. SINCE these papers were read, the demand for copies has been considerable—far beyond the regulation allowance of author's copies: there was no way of meeting this except by the reprint of a limited issue. As stated in Part II, the author is by no means confident that he has adopted the very best mode of treating the wide subject of Famines. He adopted that mode which seemed best suited to the Journal wherein the papers originally appeared; and the same arrangement is here retained. BELSIZE PARK GARDENS, LONDON, N.W. May, 1879. My present subject has at once the advantage and the disadvantage of being novel. I do not find that any previous writer has deemed the subject of famines worthy of careful investigation. I could not find, when I required to write upon the subject some two years ago, that even a list of the famines. which had occurred in the history of the world, so far as we know of that history, had been compiled. I then made the chronological table, which I shall pre- sently give, as a first effort in this direction. I felt that it must necessarily be incomplete. I have since added to it, and begin to hope that it is now sufficiently matured to be presented to this It is not so much a mere table of famines, instructive as I venture to think such records are, when compiled with any view to com- |