The examiner., 1882-03-25
Effects Of the Floods.


 ANew York Herald correspondent telegraphs from Little Rock, Ark. as follows: Your cor resl ondent has just returned from a tour in Desha, thicot and Ashley counties, which en- brace large portion Of the overhowed districts. The stories of death, suffering and destruction Of stock and property have not been Oyerdrawn, but, on the other hand, the mirror has not been held up to nature as the facts warrant. Every where is desolation; everywhere is suffering. Opposite Arkansas City the Mississippi river is fully eighty miles wide, and the banks are but fraiI barriers against the encroaching current. Houses have been swept away, many lives lost, hundreds of head of cattle drowned, planta- tlons almost destroyed, and many planters beg gared.
 There are not less than twenty plantations in the Laconia Circle utterly ruined. The section named is noted for its great fertility, 15, 900 bales of cotton being annually raised upon it. The whole tract is completely submerged, and hundreds of tenants are left without shelter food.
 In Chicot county the loss of property and life is as great as 6 sewhere. Some fifteen persons have been drowned. There is not planter ill the county who is not sufferer to & greater or less extent.
 In Ashley county the situation is gloomy, many of the largest planters having been fGan- cialIy ruined. More than 1000 people the verge of starvation in this county.
 The Herald correspondent had an interview with Monroe Brown, 8 gentleman who had leased large tract O lan4 in Cypress Bend, Desha county, and who was living with his family in the bottoms when the Mississippi began to rise. Said he: i've were overtiowed almost in a twinkling. The water poured into the house at every available space. It hap pened had 8 mule hit"hed at the front gate, and catching up my wife, who had three months old baby ill her arms, carried her out, wading into water up to my knees, and got the mule. T knew there ridge some two miles east, and thought if I could only get to it we would be safe until picked up by steamer. My wife was almost scared tu death, but she's plucl1y little woman, and SC she didn't say anything until we got into deep water that carried the mule off his feet and forced it to swim Then she began screaming and when the animal saw the corpse of a negro floating on the water and began Whirling round and round she fainted dead away and lay iikc lead in my ,armI. About that time began to think should all perish, for in the excite ment of the moment 1 had lost the course Gu which had started, and as far as I could see there nothing but a wide expanse of water "a solid sheet of surging, foam-crested waves. 1 seemed to be ahoat In the center of sea, with my wife unconscious in my arms and the infant slumbering serenely on her breast. Oar conlbined weight taxed the strength of the faithful mule to the utmost and just when it seemed on the point of sinking with exhaustion and began to contemplate the possibility Of watery grave, heard voices, and looking my shoulder saw three colored men on a raf 1 called to them and they came to my reief, and thus snatched us all from the very jaws ot a terrible death. My mule foated down tn: current and was drowned. I wouldn't repeat that experience for all the wealth O. the World''
 Colonel G. ". sappington, prominent and we althy planter, had likewise Q trying ordeal in removing his family to place of safety, and owly escaped destrIc ion. Colonel Sap pington said the scene once seen was never to be forgotten. Tho fleeing people, thu waters sweeping everything before tLem, the roar of the rising waves all formed a picture as IT a was Many persons took refuge in trees until the boats picked them up, many were taken from th5 roo's of floating dwellings, while particles of houses drifting with the current markeI the ,uin of once happy homes.
 Lieutenant s. c. Vedder. of the Nineteenth United States infantry, who was detailed oy the war department to investigate the condition O. affairs in this State, was interviewed. He said he had been all through Southern Arkansas and found that the reports of suffering were not ex" ggerated in the least. cit was," said he, 'too appalling to be exaggerattd d. The Mississippi river is higher than it has ever before been known. At places along the rail- way in De7ha county where the water was never known to reach in the past strong current Is sweeping. Three-foufths of Chicot and Desha counties are inundated, and at least 4,00o people in either county are Ill & state of desti- tuition. Thus far the rations have not been properly issued. No one seems to be re- sponsible.''
 A dispatch from New Orleans says: Above J to the Yazoo river hes been covered by the floods. The people, with such stock and prop erty as they could save are focking to Vicks- burg in the steamers. Red river and it's chief tributary, the Ouachlta, are almost everywhere over their banks, covering many plantations. Along all the streams and bayous that em pity into Red river there is the same 8 ate of af- fairs and some hundred thousand colored people who have lost their all must live on rations.
 In Richland Parish the cattle and hogs are reported to be dying in large numbers. They are unableto get anything to eat and they die from starvation and from the effects of bites by the gnats. Fires are built to the gnats away In their efforts to get in the smoke the cattle in 8 few minutes trample the fires out
 Memphis dispatch says: The flood has broken nearly all the railroad connections with Memphis. Passengers on boats give unfavor- made the trip from New Orleans says that at Torrene the river is 100 miles wide. Fully fifty negroes have lost their lives at Riverton, and ... the people there Riverion there is a single acre of unfiooded land literally covered with snakes. One old colored man is the sole human inhabitant thereof. In many places starving cattle light like cannibals and are feeding on each other negro living near Island No. SS killed deer that had swan three miles, and took it to his cabin where hs stock was. severe fight ensued between the negro and his cattle for the possession of the deer, he having finally 10 throw them parts. Of the animal to keep them quiet People all along the banks of the ri CT have cut away their floors from the sides of their houses, so that the floors will float on top of the water. AS yet no estimate of the loss can be made.
 General Beckwitb, of the commissary de- partment, has received the following from Cap tain J. $. Loud, at Memphis: found Tennis cot county, Mo, in distressing condition, being almost entirely submerged. and about