The Great Famine in Brazil.
Mr. Herbert H. Smith, who is now in Brazil collecting material for a series of papers on that interesting Empire, to appear in Scribner's Monthly, writes as follows: 'People in the United States know little about this great famine that is raging in the northern part of Brazil; I myself had no idea of its importance until very lately. It is enough to state that it affects at least one-fourth of the whole population of the Empire; that hundreds are dying of starvation, and thousands of disease incident to exposure and insufficient food. In the city of Ceara, which will be my principal point of study, the normal population of 30,000 has been swelled to 80,000 by fugitives from the drouth-smitten interior country; and among this 80,000 the death-rate has reached the enormous figure of 300 per day. These drouths are periodical, occurring once in twenty or thirty years; it seems to me, therefore, that a study on the spot will be of very great importance; it is entirely another side of Brazil from that which I have before seen and written of.'