Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-02-22
HELP,OR WEPERISH
Sad Condition of Affairs i'm the Bottoms
Hundreds OF People, White as
Well as Black,
Without Means Of Subsistenee-An Ap.
peal for Aid Which ShOuld Not
be Disregarded.

The following letter, received yesterday at
| the Cotton Exchange, speaks 10 itself. The
case is urgent. There is no time for delay.
! 1t Is 10 be hoped that Memphis will respond
promptly and literally:
Arkansas CITY, ARK, February, is 1882.
! To the Honorable Secretary OF the Cotton Elk
change, Memphis, Tennessee
DEAR SIR am requested by quite num-
Der of people 10 write the relief COM
mittee of your city in reference 10 obtaining
some aid from your good people for the
suffering and destitute OF this section. 1
most cheerfully comply, knowing the lib
crafty OF your people toward the really
needy; also believing that your people desire
an opportunity 10 show their known human
ity in cases of distress, that they may show
they are as willing and ready to aid others
as they were to receive the same during the
several fearful scourges upon them in 1873
and 1873. To induce your action, l will
here stale that owing to the overhows of the
last two years and the drouth of the last
year, our people made nothing. Many OF
them mortgaged all they had 10 grow the
last two crops. Both failed; hence all was
lost. Now hundreds of good people, white
and colored,
HAVE NOTHING, OR But LITTLE, UPON WEIGH
To sUBsIsT,
and nothing to pledge merchants for sup
plies till they can make crop. 10 this
condition this present unpre cedented food
has come-caught them in destitution and
want, with none OF their neighbors in condi-
ton TO relieve them. The wafer now il
several inches abuve the hi n flood of 1876,
and prospect of more coming. 1t has in
undated the whole country in the bottoms.
To flee to the hills our people cannot, for
want of friends. B sides, if they were in the
hills they would find but few able or willing
to aid them, for the drouth of last year made
the people in the hills as short of provisions
as those in the bottoms. They do not wish
to leave their homes in the bottom, for the
water will retire in time to make, it Ia hoped,
good crop. What few people We have that
have anything
ARE DIVIDING WITH THEIR DESTITUTE
NEIGHBoRs.
Soon they will be out themselves. To illus
trate: Ooe poor man, n colored man, too at
Chicot City, Ed, c. P. BaiIy, told me to-day
he was feeding and caring for twenty-five OF
his destitute neighbour, but said he was now
about out of everything himself. He said
TO me to-day: "Will you write to Memphis
for aid? / remember in 1874 you wrote to
those good people, as also ST. Louis, ana soon
provisions came 70 the relief committee here,
the Rev. Jim Pryor, Esquire Adair and
Elder Madison, who distributed it out to our
people. We were saved, and made good |
crop, and l hope returned their money in
shi pments to those places" We have in |
process of organization relief COM !
mittee. We will do all we can, but the |
restitution and want will soon be so great !
we will not be able TO supply it. Mr.. Sec |
r. tary, l have written enough, and have |
not overdrawn the picture. To know the
real condition here is sufficient for your
people. Please take the matter in hand,
and whatever you do, send the provisions
to this place to the relief committee of 1874,
Rev. John Pryor, E-quire Adair and Elder
Madison. They will see that it is properly
melted out to those that are worthy objects of
charity in this hour of trial to them. Send
ne list of the donors, that our people may
know to whom they may be indebted for
'uccor and aid; also, that they may be re-
rendered in future. Yours, very truly,
j. w DICKINSON |