terity and inflexibility have been relaxed, and he has
made popular speeches wherever he has gone. I hope good fruits will
ensue. But he returns to find the people here almost in a state of
starvation in the midst of plenty, brought on by the knavery or
incompetency of government agents.

What is remarkable is the estimate of $50,000,000 by the
Commissary-General for the purchase of sugar, exclusively for the sick
and wounded in hospitals, the soldiers in the field being refused any
more. One-fourth of the whole estimates ($210,000,000) for sugar, and
not an ounce to go to the army! And this, too, when it is understood
nearly all the sugar in the Confederacy has been impressed by his agents
at from 50 cts. to $1 per pound. It is worth $2.50 now, and it is
apprehended that a large proportion of the _fifty millions_ asked for
will go into the pockets of commissaries. No account whatever is taken
of the _tithe_ in the Commissary-General's estimates.

Flour sold at $125 per barrel to-day. There must be an explosion of some
sort soon. Certainly Confederate notes have fallen very low indeed.

Another solution of the President's tour, by the uncharitable or
suspicious, is a preparatory or a preliminary move to assuming all power
in his own hands. They say the people are reduced by distress to such an
extremity that, if he will only order rations to be served them, they
will not quarrel with him if he assumes dictatorial powers. Legislation
has failed to furnish remedies for the evils afflicting the community;
and, really, if the evils themselves were not imputed to the government,
and the President were ambitious--and is he not?--he might now, perhaps,
play a successful Cromwellian role. But can he control the State
governments? The government of _this_ State seems like potter's clay in
his hands, the Legislature being as subservient as the Congresses have
hitherto been. It is observed--independence _first_--then let Cromwells
or Washingtons come.

My wife, to-day, presented me with an excellent under-shirt, made of one
of her dilapidated petticoats. A new shirt would cost $30. Common brown
cotton (and in a cotton country!) sells for $3 per yard. I saw common
cotton shirts sell at auction to-day for $40 per pair. Beef is $1.50
per pound, and pork $2. But these prices are paid in Confederate
Treasury notes, and they mark the rapid depreciation of paper money.

The enemy, however, in spreading over the Southern territory, ar