The weekly Ottumwa courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1857-1872, 1859-04-28
Scarcity of Food.

for stock, and we have this week to announce
the unwelcomc fact that feedssfor man is very
scarce and difficult to be had in many por-
tons of this county, more or less SO in all
parts We are assured by residents of sew
eral Townships and by gentlemen who have
travelled extensively through the county,
that the restitution is very general and though
not perhaps positively alarming, yet suiii-
GENTLY serious to claim immediate attention
on the part of the public. The cause of the
scarcity seems to be the hard times, high
prices, and scarcity of money. Of wheat
there is little OF none; there is corn, posi-
bly, enough to supply the county until harvest
| if it were equally distributed, but it is held
by few hard cases who will not sell for less
than dollar bushel, and cash down at
| that Meat is also scarce. No kind of bread
stuffs or provisions can be had on credit, SO
that it matters not what a mans circumstan-
ces may be, if he happens to have no money
in his purse, and great many find them
selves in that category, he can get nothing
to eat ifhis own granery is empty. ,....
This is bad state of things. Seed time
has come, and the weather is favorable for
putting in crop; but neither men nor ami
mails can work without food. There is grass
for the cattle, but they cannot stand it to
work on that alone. They need grain. How
can they get it, and how can -four be had to
supply destitute families until crop can be
made9 This seems to us to be an important
question, one which ought to be acted upon
without delay. ..... .......
l. there not some plan by which feed and
provision can be furnished to the needy on
credit The time is short and any action to
be eifectual must be prompt. Ifthe residents
of neighborhood where destitution prevails.
would promptly combine their means, raise
fund or borrow money, and send one OF
their number after enough to supply that
community at cost, we have no doubt but
every family might be supplied in two weeks.
Or, if some benevolently inclined person who
has credit or means available, would invest
that means in flour and corn, and sell on
credit for good security, and at such prices
as would pay for the risk and trouble, this
might do. 1t is possible that business men
may not regard either of these methods as
practicable, ifso will they please suggest a
better one. We are of those who think that
in an emergency of this kind, communities
as such, have duties to discharge. for which
they ought to be held responsible, and if
there is duty, high and scacred, devolving
upon every community, it is to see to it that
the wants of the destitute among them are
supplied. If there can ever be a case when
combination of means, the exercise ofneigh-
borly kindness, and the extension of credit
is duty, it is in the present crisis, and we
have poor opinion of those men, who hap
pen to have a surplus of corn or wheat at a
time like this, who would permit neighbor
to 60 away from his oyerfowing granery
unsupplied, because he is unable to count
down to him every cent of the famine prices
demanded. 1t is a curious fact that these
hard-hearted, skin-fint characters, always
happen to have all the corn in such emergen-
cies, and they seem to harden with the times,
and often revel in the exercise of the power
which chance has placed in their hands
Such men if they have souls, which may be
doubted, are wanting in every attribute Of
human beings, and are proper subjects for the
finger of scorn to be pointed at in all tine to
come. There ought to be some law to force
such men to discharge their duty to society,
and there is a law of self preservation which
we are not sure but it weuld be well to apply
to case of this kind. 1t is more than limited
at in some quarters,