The Tri Weekly Standard

The South Carolina Famine.

The New York Evening Post says the reports received by the Southern Relief Commission of the destitution in South Carolina are appalling. The distress reaches over the State, and not fewer than one hundred thousand persons—about one-quarter of the population—are now without food to last them a week.

On Wednesday the Commission ordered two thousand bushels of corn to the Sumter district of that State, and nearly every other district is in little better than a famine. Dr. C. Henry Leland writes to the Commission from Richmond district, under date of February 8th, as follows:

"There are in my immediate neighborhood twenty-five or thirty families who will soon be in the greatest distress for the want of the common necessaries of life, caused by the failure of the crop last year and the vicissitudes of the war, and if they do not get relief from some quarter I do not see what will keep them from absolute starvation. I have many applications already, and can do but little, as I am almost in the same category myself. I know positively of a great many families who have not more than enough bread to last them three or four weeks, and have no prospects of getting any more until the next crop is harvested. There is but little in the country, and we have no credit abroad."

This statement is confirmed by Dr. Charles H. Suydam, late surgeon in the United States army, who says: "There is now great distress, and before the crops of the year can be made available there will be actual starvation, unless help can be obtained from some quarter."