The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1903-06-26
COMMENTS ON
RECENT EVENTS.

Scores of lives have been lost and
millions of dollars worth of property
destroyed by floods in the west this
spring. Several small towns have been
completely wiped out of existence and
it will require some years for many
others to recover from the wreck and
ruin caused by the waters ravages
within recent months. Thousands OF
people have been rendered homeless
and penniless. Every year the Mis-
souri, and Mississippi valleys suffer to
a more or less severe extent from in
undation and floods, but this season
the loss of life and property is said to
be without precedent.
The appalling experience of the west
should prove warning to the people
of the east. 1t should impress upon
them the fact that if they continue to
level their forests for sordid CONNER
cial purposes nature will require them
all too soon to pay heavy price, per-
haps not alone in property but in hui
man lives.
The cause of the frequent western
floods is traceable to the practically
denuded condition Of the country
through which flow the tributaries of
the Missouri and Mississippi. There
are few forests to hold back the water
and when there is large rainfall the
streams almost Immediately overflow.
This section has not yet experienced
very disastrous floods, but it is liable
to. The drainage effect of the whole
sale destruction Of timber in the
Adirondacks is showing itself more
each year at Albany, where the river
channel is narrow. The lower part of
that city has been long visited by
floods in the spring and fall, but it is
only within the last few years that
the overflow has caused much damage.
The situation is growing serious and
the business interests of Albany have
become so alarmed that they are dill
gently discussing ways and means for
coping with the floods.
This is a matter in which cities and
villages on the banks of the lower
Hudson may not be Immediately con
cerned, but if lumbermen, paper man.
ufacturers and others are permitted
to go ahead the next decade denuding
the rivers headwater and the country
drained by it's tributaries at the rate
they have within recent years it is
quite possible that other Hudson Val
ley cities besides Albany4will face the
flood problem.
New York should continue it's policy
of purchasing and reserving forest
lands in the Adirondacks. That is a
cheaper and better way of keeping the
river within it's banks than building
levees and dykes, as has been neces
sary all along the Mississippi.
In some of the provinces of China
according to most distressing reports
families have been driven to the DIES
perate straits of putting up their rel
atives for sale in order to procure
food. While the story has its deeply
pathetic side, yet it reminds one with
forcible righteousness of the expedient
of the poor Irishman who sold the last
cooking vessel on the place to get
something to cook in it. DiSposing OF
ones kin by public sale might be
called establishing commercial rela.
tions, in one sense of the word Yet
the custom is older than one might
upon the moment think it, and not at
all confined to the Orient or the "Celes
tial Kingdom" Little children in
this enlightened country have beer
either selling or giving away theil
parents and older brothers and sisters
since that mysterious time that pre-
cedes the beginning of the oldest in.
habitant's recollection. The youth
who has not sold out his big sister ir
the presence of her best fellow has
well, he never had any big sister. The
infant prodigy who has not perpetratec
some sort of effective and humiliatine
sell upon it's boastful parents in the
presence of company who were SEIZED
uled to be bored with an exhibition
of the child's uncanny smartness
would be hard to find.
The more mature young woman who
has not sold doting father into years
of the slavery of debt and financial
distress for the meagre price of an
elaborate wardrobe, period of wild
oats sowing or an education that
should have been earned by the recipi.
ent of the benefit, is also scarce. And
the anxious and ambitious parents who
have sold their sons and daughters into
the servitude of unnatural and I'M
congenial marriages for the paltry con-
sideration of worldly wealth and social
position are designated as legion.
No, China has none the better oil
the worse of us on the proposition OF
bartering relatives. The advantage is
all on the side of China, so far as the
ethics of the matter go. They are
driven to it by starvation; we are act