Conclusion: Prayers and gifts were never more needed, or more likely to do lasting good than just now.
The Southern Winter of 1880-81.
REV. S. E. LATHROP, MACON.
For this season, at least, the name of “Sunny South” is a misnomer. Beginning in November last, there have been almost four solid months of cold, sour, dismal, cloudy, stormy weather.
For ten days the thermometer stood constantly below the freezing point. One night it touched zero. Everybody kept roaring fires, and cowered over them in their loosely-built houses. Soon the coal-yards gave out, and the wood market was empty. The smooth-shod Southern horses could not climb the icy hills to bring supplies. Fuel became steadily scarcer and higher—wood going up from four dollars (the usual price) to fifteen dollars per cord, and very scarce at that.
Rich and poor alike suffered. Many burned the fences, fruit trees and shade trees. Poor people burned their board partitions, bedsteads, tables, even chairs and trunks, and some, after all, had to go to bed as the only means of keeping warm.
The “fuel famine” lasted ten or twelve days, the like of which was never known before. Water-pipes burst, fruits, flowers and vegetables were frozen, and general distress ensued. The chilly rain still continues, though ice and snow have disappeared. I doubt if the “blizzards” and “Arctic waves” of the North cause much more real suffering than this chilly, damp, freezing winter here brings to the inhabitants so unaccustomed to this weather.
Most Southern houses are very loosely built, generally warmed with fire-places or coal grates, over which you may scorch one side and freeze the other. Water froze one day within six feet of our stove.