History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 270
This was topped with a failure of the rye crop in the 1850's and widespread famine
followed. Social and private assistance could do little to change the dramatic
situation. Groups of starving people left the countryside and sought solace in the
cities. The plundering of a bakery in Bruges on 2nd March 1847 signaled the
beginning of the hunger riots.
In 1848, 35% of the population in West Flanders depended on public welfare. The
exhausted people became an easy prey for the rapidly spreading typhoid
epidemics in 1847-1848 and, the most devastating, in 1866. Between 1830 and
1844 some thirty thousand Belgians left for France, The Netherlands or Germany.
About one in ten left Europe for the Americas.
Research has shows that the "potato sickness "6W6VBw&VBFV