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large portion of the money was spent upon about twelve thousand persons who had their management, and in many districts they were pronounced to be "works worse than idleness." They were chiefly road-making, and in Ulster they were officially called "public follies.” Colonel Douglas, a Government Inspector of Works, reported, with more candour than official discretion, but no doubt truthfully, that they were "works which will answer no other purpose than that of obstructing the public conveyances." The efforts made at the same time to promote fisheries were so clumsily undertaken by ignorant persons who had got the appointments in the emergency, that no good whatever arose from them. Throughout, whether inland or on the coast, the whole movement seemed to be rather a scheme for increasing Government patronage than for the relief of the Irish people.

This reflection is fully justified on considering the evidence that Government grants and voluntary subscriptions combined-wages for employment and money and food distributed as alms-alike failed to touch more than the fringe of the evil. In the midst of all the confusion of this undisciplined pecuniary effort, the poorhouses were crammed with the starving and the dying, and the tale is unvarying and never ceasing, from the beginning of 1846 until the end of 1847, in which latter year the potato crop was a success.

The cold was unusually severe in December, 1846. The deaths were so numerous that providing coffins for the victims became a serious question, as the survivors in a poor family could not now attempt to purchase them, as the outlay of a small sum for a coffin might be the cause of further deaths from starvation in the same family. Dr. Donovan, amongst other testimony, reported that he had been followed by a crowd of applicants, seeking coffins for their deceased friends. On asking for coffins from the authorities he was laughed at. Starvation developed into a malignant form of typhoid, known as the famine fever. Those first attacked were individuals who had been reduced by bad diet or insufficiency of food. In many cases the fever set in immediately after recovery from starvation. In Castlereah Workhouse as many as fifty persons a week died of this fever.

TERRIBLE MORTALITY.

263

In 1847, the fever rose to a fearful height. The Commissioners of Health reported that "the state of the medical institutions of Ireland was unfortunately such as peculiarly unfitted them to afford the required medical aid. The county infirmaries had not provision for the accommodation of fever patients. The county fever hospitals

were destitute of sufficient funds; and dispensaries, established for the purpose of affording only ordinary outdoor medical relief, could of course afford no efficient attendance on the numbers of destitute persons suffering from acute contagious diseases in their own miser able abodes, often scattered over districts several miles in extent."

In April, 1847, the total number of inmates in Irish workhouses was 104,445, of whom 9,000 were fever patients. The deaths in a week were 2,706. On the 19th of April, the number of cases of fever at Swinford was reported as beyond calculation. Some idea only is got of the dreadful mortality then prevalent in Cork from the fact that in one day thirty-six bodies were interred in the same grave, and the deaths in the workhouse in four months were 2,130. Dropsy, as a result of starvation, became almost universal. There were upwards of three hundred cases of fever in the Carrick-on-Shannon workhouse, and the deaths were fifty per week. Macroom was plague-stricken, persons of all ages dropping dead in the streets. In Sligo there was disease in every street, and of the worst kind. Fever committed fearful ravages in Ballindine, Ballinrobe, Claremorris, Westport, Ballina, and Balmullet, all in Mayo. In Roscommon the fever was truly awful, the hospitals were full, and applicants were daily refused admission. "No one can tell," says a writer of the time, "what becomes of these unfortunate beings; they are brought away by their pauper friends, and no more is heard of them." Seven bodies were found in a hedge; the dogs had almost eaten the flesh off. Smallpox, added to fever and dysentery, prevailed at Middeton, in Cork county, and near Bantry Abbey nine hundred bodies were interred in a plot of ground forty feet square. From the autumn of 1846, to May 1847, ten thousand persons were interred in Father Mathew's cemetery at Cork. At one time the deaths in Cork workhouse were 174 per

week, or more than one death in every hour. These are but a few of the details of that terrible time, the cases of starvation recorded in 1845 being 37,604; in 1846, 40,620; in 1847, 156,824. It is evident that the unrecorded cases were numerous beyond all calculation.

Emigration was universally recommended, and almost universally resorted to. But hundreds of thousands of the most destitute were totally unable to emigrate for want of the means of doing so. It would appear that all who could go, who had no strong reason for remaining, went. What with deaths and emigration the broad result of the famine upon population was as follows:

Population in 1841,
Population in 1851,

Decrease,

8,175,124

6,515,794

1,659,330

Allowing for ordinary

But that only imperfectly conveys the truth. increase of population the census of 1851 should have given a total of 9,018,899, so that the result of the famine was really to diminish the population by 2,504,005. The recorded emigration during the ten years was 1,436,862, so that the excess of mortality during the ten years was 1,067,143.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE FAMINE-AN ABORTIVE COERCION BILL-PEEL'S RESIGNATION, RETIREMENT, AND DEATH.

THE HE substantial accuracy of the figures previously quoted is not disputed. The fearful sufferings that resulted from the famine are admitted by all who are qualified to speak of them. Upon those points, all are agreed. But, with reference to the deductions from the facts, there is great divergence. In England it is generally regarded as a visitation of Providence, beyond human control. It is contended for the English Government, that it did everything it could do to mitigate the mischief. It is commonly claimed, on behalf of the English people, that they are in no wise responsible. It rarely seemsto occur to anybody that the Union had anything to do with it.

Upon all these points the English Government and people, are and have been perversely blind to the real truth that the famine, and its consequences, were wholly and solely caused by the Union and the legislation that has ariser. out of it. It is a fact that the agonizing deaths of that miserable million or so of people lie at the door of England-the biggest and blackest blot upon her escutcheon. It cannot be hidden, disguise it how we will. Years-even though they be years of penitence and restitution-cannot efface the mark. Even the most callous must for ever admit, at least, that "Yet here's a spot. . . . What, will these hands ne'er be clean? . . . . Here's the smell of the blood still all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this hand." But, at any rate, have the decency to "Wash your hands;" a process which, under all the circumstances, many will find hard to accomplish.

The truth is that it is not convenient for the real foundation of this dread famine to be inquired into. It is high time that foundation was laid bare, seen in all its deformity, appreciated in its full significance, and diligently re-laid so that the like monstrous edifice of wrong shall never be erected on it again. So far as the productiveness of Ireland is concerned, and the legitimate subsistence of her people thereon, that period was not one of famine at all. It was simply a failure of half the potato crop. In all other respects, the crops were superabundant; much more than enough to feed the population to repletion. But that superabundance, the growth of their own country, the produce of their own cultivation, the legitimate reward of their labour, was snatched from their hands. When it was discovered that the potatoes were rotting, though the government affected to doubt the extent of the evil, and wasted time in idle inquiries, the landlords were everywhere on the alert. From their point of view, they were disposed to over-estimate rather than under-rate the probable consequences. They were sensible of the fact that the short supply of potatoes would induce the tenants to cling to their other produce for subsistence, and, as a consequence, that they would seek to defer payment of the rent that could not be paid without selling that produce. A panic seized the landlords and their agents. Fearing, that if they waited, they might get no rent at all, they insisted upon payment earlier than usual, and, there being no other resource, distress and seizure for rent became almost universal. The bailiffs were down upon the tenants' crops even before they could get them stacked. The consequent glut of the markets for the moment compelled even the most prosperous farmers to sell at great disadvantage, whenever they needed a little ready money. Vast quantities of produce, being put up to auction simultaneously, fetched only nominal prices, barely paying the rents, and leaving the tenants despoiled and destitute. The purchasers-speculating dealers who were thriving upon the misery of others-knowing they could get better prices in England than elsewhere, shipped off everything to that country in immense quantities. It is needless to cite minute details to prove this, as the aggregate

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