THE EARLY HISTORY OF PANNA MARIA, TEXAS ... - Repositories

that "in matters of living conditions, one can observe
the continuous increase in poverty in the class that does
not possess property, ..."
12
A similar report in May
1856 told that "it is rare that one does not meet miserable
13
figures who don't have the strength or will to live."
One natural disaster in Upper Silesia in the 1850's
particularly hurt the peasants.
This disaster was the
great flood of the River Oder and its tributaries in
August of 1854.
Caused by heavy rains on the 17th and
24th of that month, this flood devastated all the lowland
countryside.
It destroyed not only the crops in the fields,
but also farm buildings and even the few industrial facilities
that existed in the towns.
Agriculture was the
most severely hit.
The flood inundated everything at a
time when already the grain was ripe in the fields and
the potatoes were maturing in the ground.
Disease was one of the great fears for Upper
Silesian peasants.
During the 1840's terrible epidemics
of typhus infected the region.
with cholera, into the 1850's.
These continued, mixed
For these later years,
the diseases were most severe in Upper Silesia during the
12
Brozek, Emigracja Zamorska, p. 8.
•"•^Ibid.. , p. 7.
14
Ibid., pp. 6-7; The Times (London), September
13, 1854, p. 7, September 19, 1854, p. 8.