Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-10-19
THE SMEaPHIS SUFFERERS.
A Plan Fer their Relief.


ing letter from sD eminent citizen Of Wes
| Tennessee relative TO our stricken sister
city, whose calamity has awakened the
sympathies of every human heart. There
will be found proposed the basis Of plaI
for the certain and continued relief of the
afflicted not only to-day, but until it Is evil
dent that charity is nc longer needed. II
cannot be doubted that assistance from
abroad will be required for some weeks af
ter the present scourge has disappeared; and
it is probable that those who are disposed
to give can do so more easily in small
amounts, as here proposed, and that greater
good will be accomplished than If all were
given at once:
| THE LETTER.
JACKSON, TENN, Oct. IA, 1873.-A 1.-THE
of the distress of our city has not been
made known to the public. Twelve humid
red people are now sick-and near q Ihous-
and newly-made orphans, and but few
brave men and women left to take care of
al these. Business of every kind is we'll
nigh suspended. In large house yester-
day morning the offices Of salesman, clerk
ard cashier, all had to be performed by the
porter. The disease has now enveloped the
city, and the whole town seems to have
been converted into vast hospital, with
labeled an balances and carriages dasbiDg
all over the city transporting relief commit
tees, or the sick from place to place, while
the soul of every man and woman you
meet, seem sick lCith sadness. God has
never scourged any American city TO such
an extent before. In the meantime the
daily expenditures of money are enormous.
A nurse is scarcely to be had for less than
five or ten dollars per day. The donations
of the last ten days from all quarters have
been most muni6cent, but all this, will, in
few days, be exhausted. Just before
these lac contributions the Howard Associ-
alton was sixteen hundred dollars in debt
and was on the point of disoanding. The
most dire suffering among the poor viii be-
gin with the rigors of the winter, when the
pestileDce has subsidized, and this casual
almsgiving shall have ceased. Under such
circumstances it will not do TO trust to the
contingencies of casual or occasional chart
ty. These calamities of our poor stricken
city seem to have brought the hearts oSsthe
haman family everywhere wonderfully
nigh together, and in this view it may
turn out blessing at last, butin disguise
most horrible and hideous. We inaUgurate
among the lawyers and judges here to-day
an experiment for systema.izing the char
tiles oftbe people upon plan OF voluntary
assessment that i'll creale 8 certain and
reliable charity fund for a month or two, in
which the burthen will fall equally but light
ly upofail. l send you me plan, which
speaks for itself. If you viii get your ed
itors to publish the plan with come words
Of commentator, we doubt not it will
bring stream of revenue into Goods treas-
ury" every Monday morning from our-uwn
people that will go far toward helping the
poor through the present terrible ordeal,
and "winteriDg" them after it is over; for
in the present beggared condition of half
the city, the direst suffsrings Of the poor are
y3t to come.
THE PLAN PROPOSED.
The subscribers hereto do bind them
selves to pay to thu treasurer OF the How
ard Association of the city OF Memphis five
dollars each per week, to be RENTED by |
each of them withou' further demand every |
Sabbath day to the address of said treas
urer, for the purpose of creating certain |
and reliable charity fund for the poor of |
Lhas city during the pestilencs now prevail
ing. They do further bind themselves and |
promise that this subscription shall be con-
,inued through the period of the present
visitation of yellow fever, and for two
weeks after it has been officially stared by |
,he Board of Heal hat the disease has dis
appeared from the city.