unfortunates, is his purpose.  This book is an appeal to the Rich in favor of the Poor.  It is the voice of Humanity calling upon Wealth to rise from her sluggish torpor and wrest the hungry and threadbare victim from the grasp of Famine, and drive desolation from our midst.  If this call is answered; if the wealthy awake to their duty and save the wretched beings who are in our midst, then the Author will have gained a richer reward than all the profits accruing from this work.  He will have been more than rewarded by the knowledge that he has been the instrument, through which charity has once more visited the South, and swept oppression and want from our land.  Such scenes as those we daily witness were never seen, even in the mildest form a few short years ago.  Prior to the war there was scarcely a beggar in the South, and from one end of the country to the other could we walk without hearing the voice of the mendicant appealing to our benevolence.  How changed now!  In every city of the South the streets are filled with ragged boys and girls stopping each passer by and asking aid.  It is a disgrace to humanity and to God, and that such things should be in our land, whose sons have exhibited such heroism and devotion.—­Many of these beggary are the sons and daughters of our soldiers—­of our honored dead and heroic living.  To the soldier who lies beneath the sod a martyr to his country’s cause, their sufferings are unknown; but if in Heaven he can witness their penury, his soul must rest ill at peace and weep for those on earth.  To the soldier, who is still alive and struggling for our independence, the letter that brings him news of his wife’s and children’s poverty must bring him discontent, and render him unwilling to longer remain in the army and struggle for liberty while they are starving.  How many times have not desertion taken place through this very cause.  In Mississippi we witnessed the execution of a soldier for the crime of desertion.  On the morning of his execution he informed the minister that he never deserted until repeated letters from his wife informed him of her wretched condition; informed him that herself and her children were absolutely starving.  He could no longer remain in the army; the dictates of his own heart; the promptings of his affection triumphed and in an evil hour he deserted and returned home to find her tale, alas! too true.  He was arrested, courtmartialed and shot.  He had forfeited his life by his desertion and bore his fate manfully; his only fear being for the future welfare of that wife and her children for whom he had lost his life.  When he fell, pierced by the bullets of his comrades, was there not a murder committed?  There was, but not by the men who sentenced him to death.  They but performed duty, and, we are charitable enough to suppose, performed it with regret.  The murderers were the heartless men who are scattered over the land like, locusts, speculating on the necessities of the people, and their aiders and abettors are those who calmly sat with folded arms, and essayed not to aid his family.  Rise, O my readers and aid the poor of our land.  Let your hearts be filled with mercy to the unfortunate.  Remember that