The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1897-04-04
The Waters Now Even With the
Crown Of the New Levee.
Flood Water Fast Spreading Over the
Entire Country in the mississippi
Delta - Many Thousand People
Rendered HomeIess-Fifty Thou
sand People on the Arkansas Side
Confronted With Starvation.

nedVy HOOQ IN the MISSISSIPPI nOfln Oh
Cairo and the rise in the Tennessee and
Cumberland Rivers, will throw another
world of water into the already filed
st. Francis basin, and as all this will
have to pass through the narrow tevee-
bound channel beginning ten miles
above Helena to the first break, ten
miles below that city, the fate of Hell
ena and the low and fertile country
behind Tunica County, Miss, levee is
problematical. The people of Helena
have raised the hight of their levee two
feet, but the water is now even with the
new crown. The levees opposite Hell
ena We're reported last night to be in q
precarious condition, and the heavy
rains of to-day have added to their
weakness.
In the Mississippi delta water is fast
spreading over the entire country.
Many thousand people have been made
homeless and appeals for aid have gone
forth. In the lowlands of Arkansas, a
call for food has been made, and the
people of Little Rock will take imme-
date action. Starvation confronts 3d.
600 people Tonight r. G. Graves and
j. S. Menkin, of the Memphis Relief
Committee, go to Washington to ask
the General Government to render as
sistance The local relief committee
has demands that will exhaust all pres
ent funds They are from Mississippi
as far down as Greenville and from
nearly all Eastern Arkansas. The visi-
tors to Washington will ask for $25, 900
to be used in buying rations- Ten
thousand dollars has already been ex-
pended by the local committee, and
probably $4,000 more of contributed
provisions have been distributed. 1t
now looks as if famine is ahead.
No more breaks in the levees are re-
ported tonight, but it is feared no hu-
man power can overcome the force of
nature below Vicksburg, and it is be-
lieved by many to be only a question Of
a few days before the same conditions
that now obtain in the delta will exist
in Southeastern Arkansas and North
eastern Louisiana.
AT Memphis the water is reported as
stationary tonight. The hopeful view
Of the food which prevailed some days
ago has been repeatedly dissipated by
reports from the upper Mississippi and
it's tributaries, which are rising at a
rapid rate, with every indication that
immense volumes of water may be ex-
pected to pour into the upper MISSISSIPPI
pi through it's tributaries, and even
tually increase the already appalling
conditions existing in the middle and
lower Mississippi Valley.
CONGRESS TO BE ASKED TO
GRANT RELIEF.
WASHINGTON, April 3.-The Presi-
i rl,a int n
news from the floods in the West, and
his sympathy has bee aroused at the
accounts of sufferingS of the unfortun
ate people who have been driven from
house and home by the rapid waters of
the Mississippi. On his own initiative
he can do little for them, but he intends
TO appeal at once to Congress to come
to the relief of the sufferers.
1t was first supposed that the passage
by Congress last week of the joint res
olution making Immediately available
$3.50, 600 of the total appropriation made
for the sundry civil appropriation bill
for the Improvement Of the Lower Mis-
sissippi River, under the direction of
the Mississippi River Commission,
would go far towards alternating the
distress of the submerged sections. 1t
has been discovered that not a cent
Of this money can be applied legally TO
! feeding or caring for the people starving
and shivering along the banks of the
rivers Under the law the money is ap
priated for the improvement of the river
and can be expended only for the repair
of the Ievees, and perhaps by a stretch
of construction for the protection of
| property.
| To meet this exigency, the President
has determined to bring the unfortunate
state of the people to the attention of
Congress, trusting to that branch of
the Government to provide means of re-
| lief. To this end he has made inquiries
! by telegraph of the Governors of the
! States where the floods prevail as to
the extent of the foods and the needs Of
their people. Their replies will serve as
a basis OF an application to Congress.
APPEAL FOR SUCCOR.
| LITTLE ROCK, April 8 This has
been a day OF incessant rains with re-
peated storms of violence, lowering
clouds and increased appeals for
help from the suffering people from the
overlooked section of the State
An appeal for succor for upwards of
400 sufferers in the Indian Bay coun-
| try where $4,000 acres are already
under water and where the back water
IS still rising, was granted to-day by the
Relief Committee of the Board of
Trade, and boat with weeks rations
for 500 men was sent to their relief. The
steamer Eugene has gone to Arkansas
port with provisions for the refugees
who have congregated there, and also a
supply of feed for their stock.
FLOOD AT GREENVILLE.
| GREENvILLE (Nfiss.), April "a
wide sheet of water covers the entire
north half of the city, and but for the
levee, which keeps the flood from the
business part of town, great damage
would be done to provisions and food
supplies, and much suffering would en-
sue in consequence.
All the necessary shopping, market
| ing, visiting of doctors and the like in
the overlooked section of Greenville is
being done in skiffs. Every street con-
tans whole fleets of these.
| Much more water is coming, and no
one can say how much higher it will
rise The crevasses above here are
pouring torrents into the basin between
the river and the eastern hills. and the
whole country will unuuestionably be
filled up. Railroad traffic is entirely
cut off.
There are about 10000 people in the
] city. Four or five thousand are in the