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of bread. Citizens have generally contributed freely from their own scanty stores 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 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 temporary, if not permanent relief to those localities.

There are large districts of country, however, where hunger and want exist,