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A GLOOMY OUTLOOK. Hard Times in the Soldler State-Western Kansas in Danger of Being Deserted by Its Hunger-Stricken People-Mortgaged Farms by Whole Townships Falling Into the Hands of Eastern Capatalists. BELOIT, Kas., Jan. 27.-The people of Western Kansas have never before in the history of the State known such difficulties as at of or ent. fearful The financial scarcity money any thing presconvertible into it is almost pitiful and have all can the do the to business keep houses alive. Following they failure of the American National Bank of Kansas City, four banks of this county alone suspended, one each at Cawker City, Dows, Glen Elder and here. There was no run made on any of them, but the little deposit they carried with their correspondent was their ruination. All over the western third of the State the cry of destitution grows louder and the Legislature has been made to hear it. An idea of the extent of the suffering can be had when it is known that twenty counties have already applied to the Railroad Commission ers for assistance. In fact all the State west of the 100th meridian, excepting a small district in the Arkansas Valley where irrigation prevails, needs it. The first appeal came from Rawlins County, where, following the abundant crops of 1889, came a total failure last year. Next came Thomas County and then others, until the line of destitution reached over all the land west of the one hundredth meridian, and extended from north to south. Every Grand Army post over the State is being called on, the Farmers' Alliances are taking in supplies, the Legislature is appropriating money, and yet but a small portion of the suffering can be relieved. The sodhouses are almost all barren, and those families where the father is not well, or where there is no father to care for the children, there is little hope for more than a bare subsistence. Many hundred families are now living on corn meal and warming themselves by means of buffalo chips, or dried manure, picked up on the plains. They have no money and their mortgages are long past due. The mortgage companies are foreclosing scores of farms daily, but to no good. They only receive a pitiful bid and are forced to take in the property. Hence in some counties there are whole townships owned by Eastern parties who will never get their cash out of their investment.
