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