The Indiana State Sentinel

Some of the most fearful cases of destitution are reported to the New York benevolent societies. One applicant for relief said: "I have tried to get work, but have failed. My family are starving. I went to nine different bakeries to get a loaf of bread, but nowhere could I beg even a crumb." The wife of a respectable sailor said to a reporter: "I have sold our bed from under us to keep my children from dying." One of the members of the society for aiding the poor gives this testimony: "The ups and downs of life are wonderful. We have to-day on our books receivers of relief who a few years ago were some of our most regular contributors to our funds, and, on the other hand, some of our most generous donors now are those whom we helped a few years ago, and by timely aid prevented from going down to the very lowest degree. But these people give now none the less generously, because they can appreciate the feelings of those in distress." A lady has started a home for sewing girls, and a place where they can run sewing machines and sell all that they thus manufacture. She says for every inch of room in the home there are fifty applicants; and that each of the women can read and write, are refined, respectable and perfectly honorable. They are anxious to get work, but even the kitchens are full, and they must subsist by charity or die.