The Portland daily press., 1874-12-12

At the Union meeting in the First Parish
church on Thanksgiving day a collection OF
S1O5 was taken up for the benefit of Western
sufferers by locusts Twenty-Five were sent to
Nevada and eighty to Nebraska. We are per-
mitted to make extracts from the reply OF the
Reverend and Honorable Geo. w. Frost of
Omaha, dated Dec. 3:
"Yours containing draft for $50 received.
Many thanks to your congregation for the gen.
erous timely donation; it will gladden. many
hearts in desolated districts of our state.
L cannot tell you how terrible this desOlation
is, nor how many suffer this, to them, dreary
winter. The locusts came down in mighty
clouds. They destroyed every green thing that
could give sustenance to man, and left the
trees as bare of foliage as in midwinter. Those
who had sown wheat saved portion OF their
crop; but the corn and vegetables were nearly
all destroyed This loss falls heavily on the
'homesteaders,' who are generally poor. They
could not obtain seed wheat and SO planted
corn; and when the locusts came, hundred to
each stalk, the fruit of a summers toll was
gone in an hour The restitution has been
fearful in some localities, particularly among
widows and their families, who have only their
160 acres of land, a 'dug-out, and few acres
of sod corn 1t has not only extended to food,
naked, and adults but little better provided for.
The agent found one young lady of IS literally
clothed in sackclOth, with no covering but bags
sewn together. One family had lived for weeks
on bread moistened with lard and hot water;
and the cultivated, well educated lady, reduced
to this condition, was so thanful that they Jared
so much better than some of their neighb0rs.
Many families had not, all told, provisions even
of the coarsest kind to last five days at one
meal day. Infants died because their mothers,
in their starved condition, could not give them
nourshment. give you these as representa-
tive cases.
The Relief Society is now well organized;
food of the most nourshing kind has been pur-
chased and sent beans. wheat and Indian
flour bacon, &C., also new and cast-off clothing
has been received, and already hundred car
loads nave been forwarded
When we remember that at least 10, 900 people
will need help for nine or ten months, the mag
nitude of the work will be appreciated. 1t will
require an outlay of more than half a million.
They must not only be supported, but furnished
with seed grain. Anything is acceptable, and
am happy to say that the cities are responding
nobly to our appeal.
have been thus particular We print only
brief extractsl as / know that you, from hav-
ing been here, will appreciate the situation.
will see that your money goes to the most
pecessitous cases. -.
The weather is delightful. 1t seems as
though Providence was favoring us with this
mild August weather to benefit the sufferers.
DR.. Hill tells us that on his last visit TO the
Rocky Mountains he travelled for seventy OF
eighty miles on the tanks of the Back Hills
1.-THE breeding place of this scourge, which has
swept down, this year, over the Nebraska
prariesl, the air for the whole distance being
so full of flying locusts as partially to obscure
the light of the sun, and give the effect of a
haze.
1t would do no harm if further collections
were taken up and forwarded, or if individuals
should contribute without waiting Tor church
action.