crackers   321,470 " 922 " flour   163,194 " 279 " beans   418,500 " 59 " seed potatoes—175 sacks of salt. 470 sacks cotton seed—700 sacks seed corn. 19 cases garden seeds—16 cases drugs and sundries.

Our committee have been shipping supplies thirty days, ending May 29th, averaging 56,219 rations daily which have subsisted at least 70,000 people, the local agents of distribution having been instructed to reduce their per capita issues. With this economy we cannot continue relief to the above numbers with only our present resources beyond the 15th of June.

Be not deceived by the falls which may take place in the Mississippi, and be reported from time to time. The waters of the overflow do not drain off by the river’s channel nor return to it, but flow to the Gulf of Mexico along the great lake above described. The cultivated lands in the Ouachita and Atchafalaya valleys or basins are from five to fifteen feet below the level of the natural banks of the Mississippi. When the river has fallen ten feet the corresponding fall of the flood waters is not ten inches. The great inundation will subside not faster than one or two inches each day, uncovering the land by degrees so slow and tedious as to weary the hopes and sicken the hearts of the owners and tillers of the soil.

I have given and described, as nearly as reasonable limits will permit, the cause, the nature, the extent, the consequences and the probable duration of the flood. I will let this statement have what effect it may upon the moral sense, the philanthropy and the magnanimity of the American people. I could give details and incidents, a few out of thousands of the same nature that world produce emotions of pity and horror. Such is not my purpose. I show you what is needed to prevent intense misery, famine and death; I leave the rest to your honor as men, to your pride as Americans and to your sense of duty as Christians. While there are such fruits of prosperity and such stores of accumulated riches, you cannot afford to let it be recorded in our common history that thousands of people in 1874 STARVED TO DEATH on the borders of the Mississippi, for the want of one fifty thousandth part of the aggregate wealth of their countrymen.

I append an interesting letter of Hon. Henry G. Crowell, Commissioner of Relief from Boston, for further information and in testimony of the faithful, systematic, vigorous and effectual operations of our Committees of Relief.

LOUIS A. WILTZ, Mayor,
Chairman of General Relief Committee and Treasurer of Relief Fund.

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LETTER OF HON. HENRY G. CROWELL,
New Orleans, May 16th, 1874.

Hon. Louis A. Wiltz, Mayor:

Dear Sir—I arrived here on the 11th instant, bearing credentials as Commissioner of the Mayor of Boston and of the Boston Committee in charge of subscription for the relief of sufferers in Louisiana by the flood. I came for the purpose of ascertaining what further assistance the citizens of Boston can render towards alleviating the necessities of the suffering, and restoring your ancient prosperity. I was immediately put in communication with the members of the General Committee of Relief, appointed by you, with those of the several subsidiary committees, and with many intelligent citizens, from whom and from eminent professional engineers made diligent enquiry as to the area of the