“Following report from Adjutant General F. S. Dickson of Illinois indicates gravity of situation in that state: ‘We have a flooded territory on the eastern side of the state along the Wabash River and its tributaries, and another through the heart of the middle western part of the state along the Illinois River and its tributaries, but the most serious situation confronting us is along the Ohio and Mississippi, particularly the Ohio. The entire territory from above Mount Carmel on the Wabash down past Cairo is either submerged or in grave danger of being submerged. Shawneetown has been abandoned and is now under water to the extent of approximately twenty-five or thirty feet. “‘On duty there are two companies of national guard and a division of naval militia. People driven from their homes numbering approximately eight hundred to one thousand are in the hills back of the city and are appealing for shelter and food. Mounds City is making a desperate fight and there are four companies of national guard working on the levees. The saving of the people is in doubt because there is no high ground in their rear to which it is possible for them to go, they are entirely shut off in the rear by from fifteen to twenty-five feet of water. Cairo is practically an island and the water from the Ohio has driven people along the territory I have indicated, away from their homes and back into the hills to distances of ten to fifteen miles. This distance is entirely covered by water. The state is furnishing all the tentage at its command and food supplies to every possible point within our power. From the reliable reports from my officers who have personally visited these places, I would say that in the present flooded area in southern Illinois there are from eighteen to twenty thousand people homeless and in dire need of food.’” SMASHING THE LEASE SYSTEM IN ARKANSAS When Governor Donaghey of Arkansas just before Christmas turned loose 360 convicts as one step in his effort to break up the system of hiring out prisoners to private contractors, nearly every editor in the country found space for the story. But when, last month, T. J. Robinson, the new governor, signed a bill which finally abolished the lease system and established in its place a state farm where prisoners are henceforth to be worked, the news was not so picturesque and only a few papers outside of the state of Arkansas thought it important enough to even publish the fact.