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to relieve the wants of suffering neighbors. Many of those who have the will to do however are themselves compelled to mortgage lands and crops to obtain provisions to subsist their own families, hands and stock until they can make crops. One half if not a larger proportion of the population of the State have had to rely for subsistence upon supplies brought from abroad.

The greatest destitution exists in the mountain districts where all are comparatively poor and the little surplus of those who had means has long since been exhausted. In some instances enterprising and large hearted men have left their homes and gone abroad to solicit [[strikethrough]] voluntary [[/strikethrough]] contributions from citizens or to beg for loans to enable them to procure food for the starving people around them. Most of these efforts have been responded to with commendable liberality and afford