allowance, were suffering fearfully from hunger. Mothers, heart-broken
and worn down to skeletons, were seen on certain days proceeding
in groups to some distant depôt, where Indian meal was to be had at
reduced prices, but still double that of the ordinary market. As they
returned to their children, with their little bags on their heads, a
faint joy lit up their famine-stricken features.

When the visitors entered a village their first question was: 'How
many deaths?' '_The hunger is upon us_,' was everywhere the cry; and
involuntarily they found themselves regarding this hunger as they
would an epidemic, looking upon starvation as a disease. In fact, as
they passed along, their wonder was, not that the people died, but
that they lived; and Mr. W.G. Forster, in his report, said: 'I have
no doubt whatever, that in any other country the mortality would have
been far greater; and that many lives have been prolonged, perhaps
saved, by the long apprenticeship to want in which the Irish peasant
has been trained, and by that lovely, touching charity which prompts
him to share his scanty meal with his starving neighbour. But the
springs of this charity must be rapidly dried up. Like a scourge of
locusts, _the hunger_ daily sweeps over fresh districts, eating up all
before it. One class after another is falling into the same abyss of
ruin.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Transactions during the Famine in Ireland, Appendix III.]

The same benevolent gentleman describes the domestic scenes he saw in
Connaught, where the poor Celts were carried off in thousands:--

'We entered a cabin. Stretched in one dark corner, scarcely visible
from the smoke and rags that covered them, were three children huddled