“Mayor Searcy1 expects shortly to appoint a committee to investigate conditions among the poor and find out those deserving help, and if satisfactory arrangements can be made, they will again be remembered during the holiday season. Applications for relief are commencing with the change to cooler weather. Mrs. Alice Johnson, of East Eleventh street, appealed to the authorities Wednesday morning for a pair of shows for her boy. The city funds are low, and she was turned over to Infirmary Director Dave Stewart, who took her to a nearby store and bought a pair of shoes for her.”
“Ben Jones, a Georgia negro, who while working for Nave Brothers, had his hand mashed, was also turned over to the infirmary authorities. Sam Jennings, a former mill man, who is suffering with a bad case of cancer of the face, was another. He has been living on a family boat at the foot of Madison street, but physicans attending a sick child on the boat, advised against allowing Jennings to remain there, and finding no other home open to him, he will go to the poor house.”2
- Henry Clay Searcy
- Mayor Again Plans Christmas Baskets. (1910, November 30). Portsmouth Daily Times, p. 10.
