The Daily Cairo Bulletin

High Water.
With two exceptions the Ohio river was higher at this point yesterday than it has been on any day during the last ten years. At about four o'clock yesterday afternoon it stood at 45.6 on the government gauge and was rising slowly. A statement of the dates and measurements of the highest stages of water at this point during each of the last ten years will probably be of interest to the readers of The Bulletin, and here it is:—
1872, April 20th, 29.21; 1873, February 26th, 41.25½; 1874, April 26th, 47.41½; 1875, April 21st, 33.7½; same year, August 8th, 45.1; 1876, April 7th, 46.4½; 1877, April 15th, 40.6; 1878, March 17th, 35.85½; 1879, January 26th, 36; 1880, March 23d, 44.5½; 1881, April 20th, 45.95½; 1882, January 21st, 45.69 and rising.
It appears from this statement that the only years during the last ten, which could show a record of higher water at this point than the present did yesterday, are 1876 and 1881; that only one year in the ten, 1879, can show as early a date for the highest water during the year as does the present, and then it was but 36 feet; that in one year out of the ten, 1872, the highest water came in February; in two years, 1878 and 1880, it came in March; in five years, 1872,'74, '76, '77, '81, it came in April, and in one year, 1875, it came as late as August. It is probable that the river will continue to rise here a little while longer, and may reach a higher point than it has been since 1872.
But "let her come:" Cairo can stand off all the water the old Wabash, Tennessee, Cumberland, Missouri, Mississippi, and Ohio rivers can roll down upon her and not feel the least inconvenience either. Cairo didn't suffer any in 1876, when the river stood at 46.41, which was the highest water known in ten years, and she would not stand in a particle "of danger now were it to rise several feet above even that mark. Yet, it would do a great deal more damage to property, both above and below Cairo, than it has already done at its present stage. Every inch of a rise now will mean destruction to some property somewhere and, therefore, with an eye full of pity and a bosom heaving with anxiety for poor inundated Paducah, Nashville and kindred marshes, we hope and pray that the flood will come no higher. Standing upon this lofty eminence, at the confluence of the two mightiest streams in the land, we survey the fearful destruction the raging floods have wrought 'round about us, with a calm assurance of our own safety, but with some feelings of regret that the rebuke given to those who scoffed at and defamed us, is so pointed, so humiliating and so destructive.