SUFFERINGS IN THE SOUTH.

Timaru Herald, Volume II, Issue 63, 29 July 1865, Page 1 (Supplement)

SUFFERINGS IN THE SOUTH.

"During the progress of the war the opportunities of getting information from the South were so rare and imperfect that the condition of the country has been almost unknown. Now that the curtain is pulled aside, the desolation and misery which prevaiL everywhere are found to be greater than any one supposed. In the prosecution of the war everything else has beenforgotten ; the means of the rich are exhausted, and the poor" are reduced to want and starvation. In some districts — the Valley of Virginia, for' example —there can scarcely be a home which has not lost one or more of its members ; but the ' people seem to keep aloof front their conquerors, so that little is said of their individual sufferings. It is the physical aspect of the country which ■' impresses all who pass through it. The desolation m all directions is deplorable. In Eastern' Virginia there is said to be no crops m the' ground, no- seed corn to be obtained, and no" cattle to be seen. " Slave labor is disorganised, and free black labor cannot be obtained." The' last evil is one which everyone has anticipated, and which must of course be felt until the posi-' tion of the black has completely re-adjusted itself. Bnt years will elap3e before even the face of the country recovers from the ravages which-: have taken place. In South .Carolina people of "gentle blood" as well as the very poor are described as waiting for a small measure of rice ' to> be doled out to them. In Georgia the papers speak of the destitution as "appalling," and declare that " what few inhabitants remain there are almost starved to death." It was known that the state of the South most be desperate, but these descriptions conjure up a picture which, is more melancholy than any the moat ardent partisan of the North has drawn. The "world 1 has probably never seen havoc and rain on so' huge a scale.