Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 March 1882 — MISSISSIPPI FLOODS. [ARTICLE]

MISSISSIPPI FLOODS.

Lieut. CL B. Satteblee, who was spedsßy detailed to go through the overflowed districts in the vicinity of Arkansas City, has examined the Arkansas and White rivers and points sooth of the Arkansas. He reports that nineteen* twentieths of the country is under water, and a considerable portion of the colored population is in destitute dreams* anoea. L<ent 8 utter lee estimates that fully 3,600 people have no means of subsistence. The Biate authorities are doing nothing to alleviate the Buffering, trusting to the sufficiency of the Government bounty. There will be little or no stock left in the flooded district. A gentleman who made the trip from Vloksburg to Yazoo City reports the condition of the inland districts as bad or worse than reported. Sunflower, Laflore, Bolivar, Coahoma, Tallahatchie and Tunica counties are entirely under water. Issaquena, Yazoo. Holmes and Washington connties are about one-half and Warren county about one-quarter so. The total population of these, by tie last census, was J 62.442, and of these at least 100,(XX) are colored laborers made absolutely destitute by the flood, and who must be supported by outside contributions until the river falls and work is resumed. The region south of Memphis is swarming with l nff«io-gnats, which are killing what little stock was saved from drowning. One result of the overflow has been to prove to the satisfaction of the natives that the levee system is a failure. Millions of money may be spent tn repairing the damage already done, Dut, in the opinion of tbe knowing ones, it will be thrown away. Reports received at the War Department in Washington estimate that there are 80,000 destitute sufferers m the flooded regions between Cairo, IQ., and the Gulf of Mexico. It is beUeved that an appropriation of $1,000,000 by Congress will be required before those people oan again become self-supporting.

In the Louisiana Sugar Region—A Discouraging Picture of Ruin and Desolation. [Baton Rouge Telegram to Chicago Times.] Your correspondent has been drifting down the great river for more than a week, and reached Baton Rouge to-night There is a sameness about the speotacle, but it does not grow tiresome. Something is constantly arising to relieve the monotony of overmuch desolation. Villages, settlements, plantations and corrals of cabins are to be seen every few miles along the banks, half under water. Bulldtugs on ground forty feet above the river at low water can scarcely be seen now, the flood having enveloped them. Great steamers drawing ten feet of water plow across bars and banks the tops of which could be seen from the pilot-houses in summer time. The inhabitants of the submerged settlements cling to their homes with tenacity and desperation, determined not to go as long as there is a plank left to float on. At every landing rerfu pees from the interior are taken on board. Tueir recitals are distressing in the extrema Many say they are ruined, and that they will never return.' Otherspcurse their luck, but say they will try it again. At Natchez the river is only twenty-five miles wide, narrower than at any point south of Columbus, Ky. The effoots of the big breaks about Mllliken’s bend are felt for seventy-live miles down the nver. and near Vidalia, opposite Natchez, other crevasses let tbe water through ou the land further down. For twenty miles north and south of the month of Red river the spectacle is even more appalling than at the mouths of the Arkansas and St. Francis rivers.

Here the damage is very great, not only to stock and machinery, but the growing crops as well. It takes three years to make a sugar crop, and an overflow means Its entire ruin. That is what has come upon the distrust described. Tbe water is by no meaus confined to tbe limits pointed out, but that is as far as the writer has been able to reach by personal observations and inquiry. The lower delta of the Mississippi, from Baton Rouge south, is all bottom or flat laud. The river at Baton Rouge has an elevation of less than fifty feet above the 6ea-level, and wat- r emptied in upon tbe land below that point would sc&roely know whether to run up niff or down, unless pushed by a power behind. The force of the volume coming up behind is all that keeps the drift moving toward the gulf, and the motion is oftentimes scarcely perceptible. The sluggishness of tho lower waters is the reason why the drainage of the upper river is not more rapid, and explains why the river is so much slower falling than it is rising. The basiu is full, and the incline is so very slight that the water merely dribbles out over the top, where the crops are m the ground in Arkansas, Mississippi and Upper Louisiana. The lower parishes will still be inundated. FEARS FOB THE FUTURE—WHAT WILL FOLLOW THE FLnOD. Daily contemplation has robbed the flood of many of the hortors that appalled the residents in the early stages of the deluge, and the people are already laying plans for the future and determining what they will do when the waters subside. What will be the result of it all ? is the question the Times correspondent has been asking everybody with whom he has been in contact whose views were worth liaviug. Will the planters lie down, or will they raise a cotton crop this year in spite of tho calamity that has visited them? In many instanoos the repfy is that the country is ruined, and that nothing remains to do but move out aud abandou the fight. The cooler-headed aud more thoughtful men talk differently, aud are not so cast down. They look the catastrophe squarely in the face and oanvass the situation logically! As long ago as last July, the banks of New Orleans, 8t Louis and Now York ent down their lines of discount with the Mississippi valley and other ootton-raising districts about one third. Borrowers in the overflowed stations may look for a still further drawing of not less th an 20 per cent., making & curtailment of at least 60 per cent on their borrowing leverage in nine months. Beside this, many are disposed to anticipate an entire failure of this year’s crop. Thousands and tens of thousands of hr.ad of stock have been entirely destroyed, and fences and buildings aud farm machinery washed away or ruined by tne wholesale. That is the bleak and discouraging side of the picture. There is another and brighter side. Unle s there should be acontinuation of the extraordinary and .protracted rainfall that oooasioned the flood the water at and below Cairo will pass away by tho Ist of May, leaving the land m splendid condition for planting. It is an established fact that cotton on overflowed land will require a full mouth less time to mature than that planted on drv land. The sediment left by the receding water imparts a marvelous germinating force to the soil, and vegetation advunoes with astonishing rapidity. The water leaves the land in splendid condition for cultivation, aud but 50 per cent, of tho labor usually required to plant a crop will be needed this spring for the wore. There is the best authority for the statement that cotton and corn planted on overflowed land aboHt the middle of May will yirld a tine crop, unless something unusual should arise to prevent its natural development, It will be soen that the situation, while full of discouraging features, is by no means desperate. The river country has amazing recuperative power, and a good crop will go far toward repairing the damage resulting from the flood and restoring the credit of the landowners and producing classes.