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The alms of the settlement of Madras, in this dreadful exigency, were certainly liberal,
在这种可怕的危急情况下，马德拉斯定居点的施舍当然是慷慨的，
and all was done by charity that private charity could do; but it was a people in beggary;
这些所有施舍都是私人慈善机构所能做的；但这是一个穷苦的民族；
it was a nation which stretched out its hands for food. For months together these creatures of sufferance,
这是一个伸手要食物的国家。接下来的几个月里，这些忍耐力很强的人，
whose very excess and luxury in their most plenteous days had fallen short of the allowance of our austerest fasts, silent, patient, resigned,
这些在物质最充足的日子里过度消耗和奢靡的人，如今陷入连我们最简单的果腹之物也匮乏的境地，他们依然平静有耐心，放弃最基本的欲念，
without sedition or disturbance, almost without complaint, perished by a hundred a day in the streets of Madras;
没有群起叛乱和骚动，几乎没有抱怨，在马德拉斯的大街上就这样过了一百天，然后自消自亡。
every day seventy at least laid their bodies in the streets, or on the glacis of Tanjore, and expired of famine in the granary of India.
每天至少有七十人陈尸街头，抑或在南印度丹柔里的缓冲地带，在这个号称印度粮仓的地方活活饿死。
I was going to wake your justice toward this unhappy part of our fellow-citizens,
我之所以将这个陷于饥饿瘟疫的情境呈给你们，
by bringing before you some of the circumstances of this plague of hunger.
意在唤醒你对与我们同为英王子民的这些生活得不快乐的人公正对待。
Of all the calamities which beset and waylay the life of man, this comes the nearest to our heart,
困扰和拦截人们生活之路的所有灾难，正在迫近我们内心，
and is that wherein the proudest of us all feels himself to be nothing more than he is.
我们最引以为傲的就是感同身受。
But I find myself unable to manage it with decorum. These details are of a species of horror so nauseous and disgusting;
但是，我发现自己无法从容得体地应付。这些都是令人作呕和厌恶的恐怖物种的细节；
they are so degrading to the sufferers and to the hearers; they are so humiliating to human nature itself, that, on better thoughts,
对遭受苦难的人和听者而言，这些细节如此令人不堪，对人类本性而言又是如此令人蒙羞。往好处想，
I find it more advisable to throw a pall over this hideous object, and to leave it to your general conceptions.
对这个隐蔽的目标心生厌倦，将其划归到一般的观念更为明智。
