Chapter VII: Irish Slavery (2)

"The heron, sailing on broad and seemingly slow vans, still kept
them in view. Anon, they reached a part of the moorland where
traces of human labour were visible. Black piles of peat stood on
the solitary ground, ready, after a summer's cutting and drying.
Presently patches of cultivation presented themselves; plots of
ground raised on beds, each a few feet wide, with intervening
trenches to carry off the boggy water, where potatoes had grown,
and small fields where grew more stalks of ragwort than grass,
inclosed by banks cast up and tipped here and there with a brier
or a stone. It was the husbandry of misery and indigence. The
ground had already been freshly manured by sea-weeds, but the
village—where was it? Blotches of burnt ground, scorched heaps
of rubbish, and fragments of blackened walls, alone were visible.
Garden-plots were trodden down, and their few bushes rent up,
or hung with tatters of rags. The two horsemen, as they hurried
by with gloomy visages, uttered no more than a single word:
'Eviction!'

"Further on, the ground heaved itself into a chaotic confusion.
Stony heaps swelled up here and there, naked, black, and barren:
the huge bones of the earth protruded themselves through her
skin. Shattered rocks arose, sprinkled with bushes, and smoke
curled up from what looked like mere heaps of rubbish, but which
were in reality human habitations. Long dry grass hissed and
rustled in the wind on their roofs, (which were sunk by-places,
as if falling in;) and pits of reeking filth seemed placed
exactly to prevent access to some of the low doors; while to
others, a few stepping-stones made that access only possible.
Here the two riders stopped, and hurriedly tying their steeds to
an elder-bush, disappeared in one of the cabins.

"The heron slowly sailed on to the place of its regular roost.
Let us follow it.

"Far different was this scene to those the bird had left. Lofty
trees darkened the steep slopes of a fine river. Rich meadows
lay at the feet of woods and stretched down to the stream. Herds
of cattle lay on them, chewing their cuds after the plentiful
grazing of the day. The white walls of a noble house peeped, in
the dusk of night, through the fertile timber which stood in
proud guardianship of the mansion; and broad winding walks gave
evidence of a place where nature and art had combined to form a
paradise. There were ample pleasure-grounds. Alas! the grounds
around the cabins over which the heron had so lately flown, might
be truly styled pain-grounds.

"Within that home was assembled a happy family. There was the
father, a fine-looking man of forty. Proud you would have deemed
him, as he sate for a moment abstracted in his cushioned chair;
but a moment afterward, as a troop of children came bursting into
the room, his manner was instantly changed into one so pleasant,
so playful, and so overflowing with enjoyment, that you saw him
only as an amiable, glad, domestic man. The mother, a handsome
woman, was seated already at the tea-table; and, in another
minute, sounds of merry voices and childish laughter were mingled
with the jocose tones of the father, and the playful accents of
the mother; addressed, now to one, now to another of the youthful
group.

"In due time the merriment was hushed, and the household
assembled for evening prayer. A numerous train of servants
assumed their accustomed places. The father read. He had
paused once or twice, and glanced with a stern and surprised
expression toward the group of domestics, for he heard sounds
that astonished him from one corner of the room near the door.
He went on—Remember the children of Edom, O Lord, in the day of
judgment, how they said, Down with it, down with it, even to the
ground. O daughter of Babylon, wasted with misery, yea, happy
shall he be who rewardeth thee, as thou hast served us!"

"There was a burst of smothered sobs from the same corner, and
the master's eye flashed with a strange fire as he again darted a
glance toward the offender. The lady looked equally surprised, in
the same direction; then turned a meaning look on her husband—a
warm flush was succeeded by a paleness in her countenance, and
she cast down her eyes. The children wondered, but were still.
Once more the father's sonorous voice continued—'Give us this
day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive
them that trespass against us.' Again the stifled sound was
repeated. The brow of the master darkened again—the mother
looked agitated; the children's wonder increased; the master
closed the book, and the servants, with a constrained silence,
retired from the room.

"'What _can_ be the matter with old Dennis?' exclaimed the lady,
the moment that the door had closed on the household.—'Oh! what
_is_ amiss with poor old Dennis!' exclaimed the children.

"'Some stupid folly or other,' said the father, morosely. 'Come!
away to bed, children. You can learn Dennis's troubles another
time.' The children would have lingered, but again the words,
'Away with you!' in a tone which never needed repetition, were
decisive: they kissed their parents and withdrew. In a few
seconds the father rang the bell. 'Send Dennis Croggan here.'

"The old man appeared. He was a little thin man, of not less
than seventy years of age, with white hair and a dark spare
countenance. He was one of those nondescript servants in a large
Irish house, whose duties are curiously miscellaneous. He had,
however, shown sufficient zeal and fidelity through a long life,
to secure a warm nook in the servants' hall for the remainder of
his days.

"Dennis entered with an humble and timid air, as conscious that
he had deeply offended; and had to dread at least a severe
rebuke. He bowed profoundly to both the master and mistress.

"'What is the meaning of your interruptions during the prayers,
Dennis?' demanded the master abruptly. 'Has any thing happened to
you?'

"'No, sir.'

"'Any thing amiss in your son's family?'

"'No, your honour.'

"The interrogator paused; a storm of passion seemed slowly
gathering within him. Presently he asked in a loud tone, 'What
does this mean? Was there no place to vent your nonsense in, but
in this room, and at prayers?'

"Dennis was silent. He cast an imploring look at the master, then
at the mistress.

"'What is the matter, good Dennis?' asked the lady, in a kind
tone. 'Compose yourself, and tell us. Something strange must have
happened to you.'

"Dennis trembled violently; but he advanced a couple of paces,
seized the back of a chair as if to support him, and, after a
vain gasp or two, declared, as intelligibly as fear would permit,
that the prayer had overcome him.

"'Nonsense, man!' exclaimed the master, with fury in the same
face, which was so lately beaming with joy on the children.
'Nonsense! Speak out without more ado, or you shall rue it.'

"Dennis looked to the mistress as if he would have implored her
intercession; but as she gave no sign of it, he was compelled to
speak; but in a brogue that would have been unintelligible to
English ears. We therefore translate it:

"'I could not help thinking of the poor people at Rathbeg, when
the soldiers and police cried, "Down with them! down with them,
even to the ground!" and then the poor bit cabins came down all
in fire and smoke, amid the howls and cries of the poor creatures.

"'Oh! it was a fearful sight, your honour—it was, indeed—to
see the poor women hugging their babies, and the houses where
they were born burning in the wind. It was dreadful to see the
old bedridden man lie on the wet ground among the few bits of
furniture, and groan to his gracious God above. Oh, your honour!
you never saw such a sight, or—you—sure a—it would never have
been done!'

"Dennis seemed to let the last words out as if they were jerked
from him by a sudden shock.

"The master, whose face had changed during this speech to a livid
hue of passion, his eyes blazing with rage, was in the act of
rushing on old Dennis, when he was held back by his wife, who
exclaimed, 'Oswald! be calm; let us hear what Dennis has to say.
Go on, Dennis, go on.'

"The master stood still, breathing hard to overcome his rage. Old
Dennis, as if seeing only his own thoughts, went on: 'O, bless
your honour, if you had seen that poor frantic woman when the
back of the cabin fell and buried her infant, where she thought
she had laid it safe for a moment while she flew to part her
husband and a soldier who had struck the other children with the
flat of his sword, and bade them to troop off. Oh, your honour,
but it was a killing sight. It was that came over me in the
prayer, and I feared that we might be praying perdition on us
all, when we prayed about our trespasses. If the poor creatures
of Rathbeg should meet us, your honour, at Heaven's gate (I was
thinking) and say—These are the heathens that would not let us
have a poor hearth-stone in poor ould Ireland.—And that was all,
your honour, that made me misbehave so; I was just thinking of
that, and I could not help it.'

"'Begone, you old fool!' exclaimed the master; and Dennis
disappeared with a bow and an alertness that would have done
credit to his earlier years.

"There was a moment's silence after his exit. The lady turned to
her husband, and clasping his arm with her hands and looking into
his darkened countenance with a look of tenderest anxiety, said:—

"'Dearest Oswald, let me, as I have so often done, once more
entreat that these dreadful evictions may cease. Surely there
must be some way to avert them and to set your property right,
without such violent measures.'

"The stern proud man said, 'Then why, in the name of Heaven,
do you not reveal some other remedy? why do you not enlighten
all Ireland? why don't you instruct Government? The unhappy
wretches who have been swept away by force are no people, no
tenants of mine; they squatted themselves down, as a swarm of
locusts fix themselves while a green blade is left; they obstruct
all improvement; they will not till the ground themselves, nor
will they quit it to allow me to provide more industrious and
provident husbandmen to cultivate it. Land that teems with
fertility, and is shut out from hearing and bringing forth food
for man, is accursed. Those who have been evicted not only rob
me, but their more industrious fellows.'

"'They will murder us,' said the wife, 'some day for these
things. They will—'

"Her words were cut short suddenly by her husband starting, and
standing in a listening attitude. 'Wait a moment,' he said, with
a peculiar calmness, as if he had just got a fresh thought; and
his lady, who did not comprehend what was the cause, but hoped
that some better influence was touching him, unloosed her hands
from his arm. 'Wait just a moment,' he repeated, and stepped from
the room, opened the front door, and, without his hat, went out.

"'He is intending to cool down his anger,' thought his wife;
'he feels a longing for the freshness of the air,' But she had
not caught the sound which had startled his quicker, because
more excited ear; she had been too much engrossed by her own
intercession with him; it was a peculiar whine from the mastiff,
which was chained near the lodge-gate, that had arrested his
attention. He stepped out. The black clouds which overhung the
moor had broken, and the moon's light straggled between them.

"The tall and haughty man stood erect in the breeze and listened.
Another moment-there was a shot, and he fell headlong upon the
broad steps on which he stood. His wife sprang with a piercing
shriek from the door and fell on his corpse. A crowd of servants
gathered about them, making wild lamentations and breathing vows
of vengeance. The murdered master and the wife were borne into
the house.

"The heron soared from its lofty perch, and wheeled with
terrified wings through the night air. The servants armed
themselves, and, rushing furiously from the house, traversed the
surrounding masses of trees; fierce dogs were let loose, and
dashed frantically through the thickets: all was, however, too
late. The soaring heron saw gray figures, with blackened faces,
stealing away—often on their hands and knees—down the hollows
of the moorlands toward the village, where the two Irish horsemen
had, in the first dusk of that evening, tied their lean steeds
to the old elder bush.

"Near the mansion no lurking assassin was to be found. Meanwhile
two servants, pistol in hand, on a couple of their master's
horses, scoured hill and dale. The heron, sailing solemnly on the
wind above, saw them halt in a little town. They thundered with
the butt-ends of their pistols on a door in the principal street;
over it there was a coffin-shaped board, displaying a painted
crown and the big-lettered words, 'POLICE STATION.' The mounted
servants shouted with might and main. A night-capped head issued
from a chamber casement with—'What is the matter?'

"'Out with you, police! out with all your strength, and lose not
a moment. Mr. FitzGibbon, of Sporeen, is shot at his own door.'

"The casement was hastily clapped to, and the two horsemen
galloped forward up the long, broad street, now flooded with the
moon's light. Heads full of terror were thrust from upper windows
to inquire the cause of that rapid galloping, but ever too late.
The two men held their course up a steep hill outside of the
town, where stood a vast building overlooking the whole place; it
was the barracks. Here the alarm was also given.

"In less than an hour a mounted troop of police in olive-green
costume, with pistols at holster, sword by side, and carbine
on the arm, were trotting briskly out of town, accompanied
by the two messengers, whom they plied with eager questions.
These answered, and sundry imprecations vented, the whole party
increased their speed, and went on, mile after mile, by hedgerow
and open moorland, talking as they went.

"Before they reached the house of Sporeen, and near the village
where the two Irish horsemen had stopped the evening before,
they halted and formed themselves into more orderly array. A
narrow gully was before them on the road, hemmed in on each
side by rocky steeps, here and there overhung with bushes. The
commandant bade them be on their guard, for there might be danger
there. He was right; for the moment they began to trot through
the pass, the flash and rattle of firearms from the thickets
above saluted them, followed by a wild yell. In a second,
several of their number lay dead or dying in the road. The fire
was returned promptly by the police, but it was at random; for,
although another discharge and another howl announced that the
enemy were still there, no one could be seen. The head of the
police commanded his troops to make a dash through the pass; for
there was no scaling the heights from this side, the assailants
having warily posted themselves there, because at the foot of
the eminence were stretched on either hand impassable bogs. The
troop dashed forward, firing their pistols as they went, but were
met by such deadly discharges of firearms as threw them into
confusion, killed and wounded several of their horses, and made
them hastily retreat.

"There was nothing for it but to await the arrival of the
cavalry; and it was not long before the clatter of horses' hoofs
and the ringing of sabres were heard on the road. On coming
up, the troop of cavalry, firing to the right and left on the
hillsides, dashed forward, and, in the same instant, cleared the
gully in safety, the police having kept their side of the pass.
In fact, not a single shot was returned, the arrival of this
strong force having warned the insurgents to decamp. The cavalry,
in full charge, ascended the hills to their summits. Not a foe
was to be seen, except one or two dying men, who were discovered
by their groans.

"The moon had been for a time quenched in a dense mass of clouds,
which now were blown aside by a keen and cutting wind. The heron,
soaring over the desert, could now see gray-coated men flying
in different directions to the shelter of the neighbouring
hills. The next day he was startled from his dreamy reveries
near the moorland stream, by the shouts and galloping of mingled
police and soldiers, as they gave chase to a couple of haggard,
bare-headed, and panting peasants. These were soon captured, and
at once recognised as belonging to the evicted inhabitants of the
recently deserted village.

"Since then years have rolled on. The heron, who had been
startled from his quiet haunts by these things, was still
dwelling on the lofty tree with his kindred, by the hall of
Sporeen. He had reared family after family in that airy lodgment,
as spring after spring came round; but no family, after that
fatal time, had ever tenanted the mansion. The widow and
children had fled from it so soon as Mr. FitzGibbon had been laid
in the grave. The nettle and dock flourished over the scorched
ruins of the village of Rathbeg; dank moss and wild grass tangled
the proud drives and walks of Sporeen. All the woodland rides and
pleasure-grounds lay obstructed with briers; and young trees in
time grew luxuriantly where once the roller in its rounds could
not crush a weed; the nimble frolics of the squirrel were now the
only merry things where formerly the feet of lovely children had
sprung with elastic joy.

"The curse of Ireland was on the place. Landlord and tenant,
gentleman and peasant, each with the roots and the shoots of many
virtues in their hearts, thrown into a false position by the
mutual injuries of ages, had wreaked on each other the miseries
sown broadcast by their ancestors. Beneath this foul spell men
who would, in any other circumstances, have been the happiest and
the noblest of mankind, became tyrants; and peasants, who would
have glowed with grateful affection toward them, exulted in being
their assassins. As the traveller rode past the decaying hall,
the gloomy woods, and waste black moorlands of Sporeen, he read
the riddle of Ireland's fate, and asked himself when an Œdipus
would arise to solve it."

A large number of the peasantry of Connemara, a rocky and romantic region, are among the most recent evictions.

"These hardy mountaineers, whose lives, and the lives of their
fathers and great-grandfathers have been spent in reclaiming
the barren hills where their hard lot has been cast, were the
victims of a series of oppressions unparalleled in the annals
of Irish misrule. They were thickly planted over the rocky
surface of Connemara for political purposes. In the days of
the 40_s._ freeholder, they were driven to the hustings like
a flock of sheep, to register not alone one vote, but in many
instances three or four votes each; and it was no uncommon thing
to see those unfortunate serfs evicted from their holdings when
an election had terminated— not that they refused to vote
according to the wish of their landlords, but because they did
not go far enough in the sin of perjury and the diabolical crime
of impersonation. When they ceased to possess any political
importance, they were cast away like broken tools. It was no
uncommon thing, in the wilds of Connemara, to see the peasantry,
after an election, coming before the Catholic Archbishop, when
holding a visitation of his diocese, to proclaim openly the crime
of impersonation which their landlords compelled them to commit,
and implore forgiveness for such. Of this fact we have in the
town of Galway more than one living witness; so that, while every
thing was done, with few exceptions, to demoralize the peasantry
of Connemara, and plant in their souls the germs of that slavery
which is so destructive to the growth of industry, enterprise,
or manly exertion—no compassion for their wants was ever
evinced—no allowance for their poverty and inability to meet the
rack-renting demands of their landlords was ever made."

Perhaps, it requires no Œdipus to tell what will be the future of the Irish nation, if the present system of slavery is maintained by their English conquerors. If they do not cease to exist as a people, they will continue to quaff the dark waters of sorrow, and to pay a price, terrible to think of, for the mere privilege of existence.

During the famine of 1847, the heartlessness of many Irish landlords was manifested by their utter indifference to the multitudes starving around their well-supplied mansions. At that period, the Rev. A. King, of Cork, wrote to the Southern Reporter as follows:—

"The town and the surrounding country for many miles are
possessed by twenty-six proprietors, whose respective yearly
incomes vary from one hundred pounds, or less, to several
thousands. They had all been respectfully informed of the
miserable condition of the people, and solicited to give relief.
Seventeen of the number had not the politeness to answer the
letters of the committee, four had written to say they would not
contribute, and the remaining five had given a miserable fraction
of what they ought to have contributed. My first donation from
a small portion of a small relief fund, received from English
strangers, exceeded the aggregate contributions of six-and-twenty
landed proprietors, on whose properties human beings were
perishing from famine, filth, and disease, amid circumstances of
wretchedness appalling to humanity and disgraceful to civilized
men! I believe it my sacred duty to gibbet this atrocity in
the press, and to call on benevolent persons to loathe it as a
monster crime. Twenty-one owners of property, on which scores,
nay hundreds, of their fellow-creatures are dying of hunger, give
nothing to save their lives! Are they not virtually guilty of
wholesale murder? I ask not what human law may decide upon their
acts, but in the name of Christianity I arraign them as guilty of
treason against the rights of humanity and the laws of God!"

It is to escape the responsibility mentioned by Mr. King, as well as to avoid the payment of poor-rates, that the landlords resort to the desolating process of eviction. To show the destructive nature of the tyrannical system that has so long prevailed in Ireland, we will take an abstract of the census of 1841 and 1851.

1841. 1851.

Houses: Inhabited 1,328,839 1,047,935
" Uninhabited, built 52,203 65,159
" " building 3,318 2,113
— —
Total 1,384,360 1,115,207

Families 1,472,287 1,207,002

Persons: Males 4,019,576 3,176,727
" Females 4,155,548 3,339,067
— —
Total 8,175,124 6,515,794

Population in 1841 8,175,124
" 1851 6,515,794
—
Decrease 1,659,330

Or, at the rate of 20 per cent.

Population in 1821 6,801,827
" 1831 7,767,401
" 1841 8,175,124
" 1851 6,515,794

Or, 286,030 souls fewer than in 1821, thirty years ago.

"We shall impress the disastrous importance of the reduction in
the number of the people on our readers, by placing before them a
brief account of the previous progress of the population. There
is good reason to suppose, that, prior to the middle of the last
century, the people continually, though slowly, increased; but
from that time something like authentic but imperfect records
give the following as their numbers at successive periods:—

1754 2,372,634
1767 2,544,276 Increase per cent. 7·2
1777 2,690,556 " 5·7
1785 2,845,932 " 5·8
1805 5,359,456 " 84·0
1813 5,937,858 " 10·8
1821 6,801,829 " 14·6
1831 7,767,401 " 14·9
1841 8,175,124 " 5·3
1851 6,515,794 Decrease 20·0

"Though there are some discrepancies in these figures, and
probably the number assigned to 1785 is too small, and that
assigned to 1805 too large, they testify uniformly to a continual
increase of the people for eighty-seven years, from 1754 to 1841.
Now, for the first time in nearly a century, a complete change
has set in, and the population has decreased in the last ten
years 20 per cent. It is 1,659,330 less than in 1841, and less by
286,033 than in 1821.

"But this is not quite all. The census of 1851 was taken 68
days earlier than the census of 1841; and it is obvious, if the
same rate of decrease continued through those 68 days, as has
prevailed on the average through the ten years, that the whole
amount of decrease would be so much greater. Sixty-eight days is
about the 54th part of ten years—say the 50th part; and the 50th
part of the deficiency is 33,000 odd—say 30,000. We must add
30,000, therefore, to the 1,659,330, making 1,689,330, to get the
true amount of the diminution of the people in ten years.

"Instead of the population increasing in a healthy manner,
implying an increase in marriages, in families, and in all the
affections connected with them, and implying an increase in
general prosperity, as for nearly a century before, and now
amounting, as we might expect, to 8,600,000, it is 2,000,000
less. This is a disastrous change in the life of the Irish. At
this downward rate, decreasing 20 per cent. in ten years, five
such periods would suffice to exterminate the whole population
more effectually than the Indians have been exterminated from
North America. Fifty years of this new career would annihilate
the whole population of Ireland, and turn the land into an
uninhabited waste. This is a terrible reverse in the condition of
a people, and is the more remarkable because in the same period
the population of Great Britain has increased 12 per cent., and
because there is no other example of a similar decay in any part
of Europe in the same time, throughout which the population has
continued to increase, though not everywhere equally, nor so fast
as in Great Britain. Indeed, it may be doubted whether the annals
of mankind can supply, in a season of peace—when no earthquakes
have toppled down cities, no volcanoes have buried them beneath
their ashes, and no inroads of the ocean have occurred—such
wholesale diminution of the population and desolation of the
country.

"The inhabited houses in Ireland have decreased from 1,328,839
in 1841 to 1,047,735 in 1851, or 281,104, (21·2 per cent.,) and
consequently more than the population, who are now worse lodged
and more crowded in relation to houses than they were in 1841.
As the uninhabited houses have increased only 12,951, no less
than 268,153 houses must have been destroyed in the ten years.
That informs us of the extent of the 'clearances' of which we
have heard so much of late; and the 1,659,300 people less in the
country is an index to the number of human beings who inhabited
the houses destroyed. We must remember, too, that within the
period a number of union workhouses have been built in Ireland,
capable of accommodating 308,885 persons, and that, besides the
actual diminution of the number of the people, there has been a
change in their habits, about 300,000 having become denizens of
workhouses, who, prior to 1841, lived in their own separate huts.
With distress and destruction pauperism has also increased.

"The decrease has not been equal for the males and females; the
numbers were as follows.—

1841. 1851.

Males 4,019,576 3,176,124 Decrease 20·9 per cent.
Females 4,155,548 3,336,067 " 29·6 "

"The females now exceed the males by 162,943, or 2 per cent. on
the whole population. It is not, however, that the mortality has
been greater among the males than the females, but that more of
the former than of the latter have escaped from the desolation.

"Another important feature of the returns is the increase of
the town population:—Dublin, 22,124, or 9 per cent.; Belfast,
24,352, or 32 per cent.; Galway, 7422, or 43 per cent.; Cork,
5765, or 7 per cent. Altogether, the town population has
increased 71,928, or nearly 1 per cent., every town except
Londonderry displaying the same feature; and that increase makes
the decrease of the rural population still more striking. The
whole decrease is of the agricultural classes: Mr. O'Connell's
'finest pisantry' are the sufferers."

The London Illustrated News, in an article upon the census, says—

"The causes of the decay of the people, subordinate to
inefficient employment and to wanting commerce and manufactures,
are obviously great mortality, caused by the destruction of the
potatoes and the consequent want of food, the clearance system,
and emigration. From the retarded increase of the population
between 1831 and 1841—only 5·3 per cent., while in the previous
ten years it had been nearly 15 per cent.—it may be inferred
that the growth of the population was coming to a stand-still
before 1841, and that the late calamities only brought it down to
its means of continued subsistence, according to the distribution
of property and the occupations of the people. The potato rot,
in 1846, was a somewhat severer loss of that root than had
before fallen on the Irish, who have suffered occasionally from
famines ever since their history began; and it fell so heavily
on them then, because they were previously very much and very
generally impoverished. Thousands, and even millions, of them
subsisted almost exclusively on lumpers, the very worst kind
of potatoes, and were reduced in health and strength when they
were overtaken by the dearth of 1846. The general smallness of
their consumption, and total abstinence from the use of tax
paying articles, is made painfully apparent by the decrease of
the population of Ireland having had no sensible influence in
reducing the revenue. They were half starved while alive. Another
remarkable fact which we must notice is, that, while the Irish
population have thus been going to decay, the imports and exports
of the empire have increased in a much more rapid ratio than the
population of Great Britain. For them, therefore, exclusively,
is the trade of the empire carried on, and the Irish who have
been swept away, without lessening the imports and exports, have
had no share in our commerce. It is from these facts apparent,
that, while they have gone to decay, the population of Great
Britain have increased their well-being and their enjoyments
much more than their numbers. We need not remind our readers of
the dreadful sufferings of the Irish in the years 1847, 1848,
and 1849; for the accounts we then published of them were too
melancholy to be forgotten. As an illustration, we may observe
that the Irish Poor-law Commissioners, in their fourth report,
dated May 5, 1851, boast that the 'worst evils of the famine,
such as the occurrence of _deaths by the wayside_, a high rate of
mortality in the workhouses, and the prevalence of dangerous and
contagious diseases in or out of the workhouse, have undergone
a very material abatement.' There have been, then, numerous
deaths by the wayside, alarming contagious diseases, and great
mortality in the workhouses."

The Poor-law Commissioners kept a most mysterious silence during the worst period of the famine; and, it was only when the horrors of that time were known to the whole civilized world that they reported the "abatement of the evils." Perhaps, they had become so accustomed to witnessing misery in Ireland that even the famine years did not startle them into making a humane appeal to the British government upon behalf of the sufferers.

The Illustrated News, in the same article we have quoted above, says, quite sensibly, but with scarcely a due appreciation of the causes of Ireland's decay—

"The decline of the population has been greatest in Connaught;
now the Commissioners tell us that in 1847 the maximum rate of
mortality in the workhouses of that province was 43.6 per week
in a thousand persons, so that in about 23 weeks at this rate
the whole 1000 would be dead. The maximum rate of mortality in
all the workhouses in that year was 25 per 1000 weekly, or the
whole 1000 would die in something more than 39 weeks. That was
surely a very frightful mortality. It took place among that part
of the population for which room was found in the workhouses;
and among the population out of the workhouses perishing by the
wayside, the mortality must have been still more frightful. We
are happy to believe, on the assurance of the commissioners, that
matters are now improved, that workhouse accommodation is to
be had—with one exception, Kilrush—for all who need it; that
the expense of keeping the poor is diminished; that contagious
disorders are less frequent, and that the rate of mortality has
much declined. But the statement that such improvements have
taken place, implies the greatness of the past sufferings. There
can be no doubt, therefore, that the decay of the population
has partly arisen from increased mortality on the one hand, and
from decreasing marriages and decreasing births on the other.
Now that the Irish have a poor-law fairly administered, we may
expect that, in future, such terrible scenes as were witnessed
in 1847-49 will not again occur. But the state which authorized
the landlords, by a law, to clear their estates of the peasantry,
as if they were vermin, destroying, as we have seen, 268,153
dwellings, without having previously imposed on those landlords
the obligation of providing for the people, did a great wrong,
and the decay of the people now testifies against it.

"With reference to emigration—the least objectionable mode
of getting rid of a population—there are no correct returns
kept of the number of Irish who emigrate, because a great part
of them go from Liverpool, and are set down in the returns as
emigrants from England. It is supposed by those best acquainted
with the subject, that more than nine-tenths of the emigrants
from Liverpool are Irish. Taking that proportion, therefore, and
adding it to the emigrants who proceed direct from Ireland, the
number of Irish emigrants from 1842 to the present year was—

1843 39,549 │ 1847 214,970
1844 55,910 │ 1848 177,720
1845 76,523 │ 1849 208,759
1846 106,767 │ 1850 207,853
— │ —
Total, 4 years, 278,749 │ Total, 4 years, 809,302
Total, 8 years 1,088,051.

"If we add 70,000 for the two first years of the decennial period
not included in the return, we shall have 1,158,051 as the total
emigration of the ten years. It was probably more than that—it
could not well have been less. To this we must add the number of
Irish who came to England and Scotland, of whom no account is
kept. If we put them down at 30,000 a year, we shall have for
the ten years 300,000; or the total expatriation of the Irish in
the ten years may be assumed at 1,458,000, or say 1,500,000. At
first sight this appears a somewhat soothing explanation of the
decline of the Irish population; but, on being closely examined,
it diminishes the evil very little in one sense, and threatens to
enhance it in another.

"So far as national strength is concerned, it is of no
consequence whether the population die out or emigrate to another
state, except that, if the other state be a rival or an enemy, it
may be worse for the parent state that the population emigrate
than be annihilated. In truth, the Irish population in the United
States, driven away formerly by persecution, have imbittered the
feelings of the public there against England. Emigration is only
very beneficial, therefore, when it makes room for one at home
for every one removed. Such is the emigration from England to her
colonies or to the United States, with which she has intimate
trade relations; but such is not the case with the emigration
from Ireland, for there we find a frightful void. No one fills
the emigrant's place. He flies from the country because he cannot
live in it; and being comparatively energetic, we may infer
that few others can. In the ordinary course, had the 1,500,000
expatriated people remained, nearly one-third of them would have
died in the ten years; they would have increased the terrible
mortality, and, without much adding to the present number of the
people, would have added to the long black catalogue of death.

"For the emigrants themselves removal is a great evil, a mere
flying from destruction. The Poor-law Commissioners state that
the number of pauper emigrants sent from Ireland in 1850 was
about 1800, or less than one per cent. of the whole emigration;
the bulk of the emigrants were not paupers, but persons of some
means as well as of some energy. They were among the best of the
population, and they carried off capital with them—leaving the
decrepit, the worn-out, and the feeble behind them; the mature
and the vigorous, the seed of future generations, went out of
the land, and took with them the means of future increase. We
doubt, therefore, whether such an emigration as that from Ireland
within the last four years will not be more fatal to its future
prosperity than had the emigrants swelled the mortality at
home. All the circumstances now enumerated tend to establish the
conclusion, that, for the state, and for the people who remain
behind, it is of very little consequence whether a loss of
population, such as that in Ireland, be caused by an excessive
mortality or excessive emigration.

"To the emigrants themselves, after they have braved the pain of
the separation and the difficulties of the voyage, and after they
are established in a better home, the difference is very great;
but it may happen that, to Ireland as a state, their success
abroad will be rather dangerous than beneficial. On the whole,
emigration does not account for the decrease of people; and if it
did account for it, would not afford us the least consolation."

In the above article, the Kilrush Union is mentioned as an exception to the general improvement in Ireland, in respect to workhouse accommodation. Mr. Sidney Godolphin Osborne, the able and humane correspondent of the London Times, can enlighten us in regard to the treatment of the poor of Kilrush in 1851.

"I am sorry to be compelled again to call public attention to
the state of things in the above ill-fated union. I do not
dispute the interest which must attach to the transactions of the
Encumbered Estates Court, the question of the so-called Godless
Colleges, the campaign now commencing against the national
schools, and the storm very naturally arising against the Papal
Aggression Bill, in a country so Catholic as Ireland. But I must
claim some interest upon the part of the British public on the
question of life and death now cruelly working out in the West of
Ireland.

"The accommodation for paupers in the Kilrush union-houses was,
in the three weeks ending the 8th, 15th, and 22d of this month,
calculated for 4654; in the week ending the 8th of March there
were 5005 inmates, 56 deaths!—in the week ending the 15th of
March, 4980 inmates, 68 deaths!—in the week ending the 22d of
March, 4868 inmates, 79 deaths! That is to say, _there were 203
deaths in 21 days_. I last week called your attention to the
fact of the over-crowding and the improper feeding of the poor
creatures in these houses, as proved by a report made by the
medical officer on the 1st of February, repeated on the 22d,
and, at the time of my letter, evidently unheeded. Behold the
result—79 deaths in a population of under 5000 in one week! I
have, I regret to say, besides these returns, a large mass of
returns of deaths outside the house, evidently the result of
starvation; on some, coroners' juries have admitted it to be so.

"Eye-witnesses of the highest respectability, as well as my own
paid agent, report to me the state of the town and neighbourhood
of the workhouse on the admission-days in characters quite
horrifying: between 100 and 200 poor, half-starved, almost naked
creatures may be seen by the roadside, under the market-house—in
short, wherever the famished, the houseless, and the cold can get
for a night's shelter. Many have come twelve Irish miles to seek
relief, and then have been refused, though their sunken eyes and
projecting bones write the words 'destitute' and 'starving' in
language even the most callous believers in pauper cunning could
not misunderstand. I will defy contradiction to the fact, that
the business of the admission-days is conducted in a way which
forbids common justice to the applicants; it is a mere mockery
to call the scene of indecent hurry and noisy strife between
guardians, officers, and paupers, which occupies the few hours
weekly given to this work, a hearing of applicants.

"I have before me some particulars of a visit of inspection paid
to these houses a short time since by a gentleman whose position
and whose motives are above all cavil for respectability and
integrity; I have a mass of evidence, voluntarily given me, from
sources on which I can place implicit confidence, all tending
to one and the same point. The mortality so fast increasing can
only be ascribed to the insufficiency of the out-relief given to
the destitute, and the crowding and improper diet of the in-door
paupers. From the published statement of the half-year ending
September 29, 1850, signed 'C. M. Vandeleur, chairman,' I find
there were 1014 deaths in that said half-year. Average weekly
cost per head—food, 11¼_d._; clothing, 2_d._ I shall look
with anxiety for the return of the half-year just ended; it will
be a curious document, as emanating from a board the chairman
of which has just trumpeted in your columns with regard to this
union, 'that the lands, with little exception, are well occupied,
and a spirit of industry visible among all classes.' It will at
least prove a more than usual occupation of burying-land, and a
spirit of increased energy in the grave-digging class.

"With regard to the diet of the old and infirm, I can conceive it
possible that since the publication of my last letter there may
be some improvement, though I am not yet aware of it. I am now
prepared to challenge all contradiction to the fact that the diet
has been not only short of what it ought to be by the prescribed
dietary, but, in the case of the bread, it has frequently been
unfit for human food—such as very old or very young people could
only touch under the pressure of famine, and could not, under any
circumstances, sustain health upon.

"Let the authorities investigate the deaths of the last six
weeks, taking the cause of death from the medical officers, and
how soon after admission each individual died; they will then,
with me, cease to wonder that the poor creatures who come in
starving should so soon sink, when the sanatory condition of the
law's asylum is just that which would tell most severely even
on the most healthy. I admit, sir, that Kilrush market may be
well supplied with cheap food, but the evicted peasantry have
no money, and vendors do not give. I admit that the season for
the growth of nettles, and cornkale, and other weeds, the of
late years normal food of these poor creatures, has not yet set
in, and this I do not deny is all against them. I leave to the
British public the forming any conclusion they like from this
admission.

"What I now contend for is this—that in a particular part of
Great Britain there are certain workhouses, asylums for the
destitute, supervised by salaried inspectors, directly under the
cognizance of the Government, in which the crowding of the sick
is most shameful, the diet equally so. The mortality for the
weeks ending January 25 to March 22—484, upon a population which
in those weeks never exceeded 5200 souls! I believe these to be
facts which cannot be disputed, and I claim on them the immediate
interference of the Government, and the more especially as the
chairman of this union makes a public favourable comparison
between it and the union of Ennistymon, in the same county. I
am myself prepared, on very short notice, to go over at my own
expense with any person of respectability from this country,
appointed by Government, and I have no doubt we shall prove that
I have, if any thing, understated matters; if so, am I wrong,
sir, in saying, that such a state of things, within a twenty
hours' journey from London, is in a sad and shameful contrast
to the expected doings of the 'World's Fair' on English ground?
_When, the other day, I looked on the Crystal Palace, and thought
of Kilrush workhouse, as I have seen it and now know it to be,
I confess I felt, as a Christian and the subject of a Christian
Government, utter disgust._ Again, sir, I thank you from my heart
for your indulgence to these my cries for justice for Ireland."

Alas! poor country, where each hour teems with a new grievance; where tyranny is so much a custom that the very institutions which have charity written upon their front are turned to dangerous pest-houses, slaving shops, or tombs; where to toil even to extremity is to be rewarded with semi-starvation in styes, and, perhaps, by sudden eviction, and a grave by the wayside; where to entertain certain religious convictions is to invite the whips of persecution, and the particular tyranny of the landlord who adheres to the Church of England; where to speak the faith of the heart, the opinions of the mind, is to sacrifice the food doled out by the serf-holders; where to live is to be considered a glorious mercy—to hope, something unfit for common men.

The struggles and achievements of Con McNale, as related in "Household Words," give us a tolerably truthful representation of the milder features of Irish peasant life. Con had better luck than most of his class, and knew better how to improve it. Yet the circumstances of his existence were certainly not those of a freeman:—

"My father," said he, "lived under ould Squire Kilkelly, an'
for awhile tinded his cattle; but the Squire's gone out iv this
part iv the counthry, to Australia or some furrin part, an' the
mentioned house (mansion-house) an' the fine property was sould,
so it was, for little or nothin', for the fightin' was over in
furrin parts; Boney was put down, an' there was no price for corn
or cattle, an' a jontleman from Scotland came an' bought the
istate. We were warned by the new man to go, for he tuk in his
own hand all the in-land about the domain, bein' a grate farmer.
He put nobody in our little place, but pulled it down, an' he guv
father a five-guinea note, but my father was ould an' not able to
face the world agin, an' he went to the town an' tuk a room—a
poor, dirty, choky place it was for him, myself, and sisther to
live in. The neighbours were very kind an' good though. Sister
Bridget got a place wid a farmer hereabouts, an' I tuk the world
on my own showlders. I had nothin' at all but the rags I stud up
in, an' they were bad enuf. Poor Biddy got a shillin' advanced iv
her wages that her masther was to giv her. She guv it me, for I
was bent on goin' toward Belfast to look for work. All along the
road I axed at every place; they could giv it me, but to no good;
except when I axed, they'd giv me a bowl iv broth, or a piece iv
bacon, or an oaten bannock, so that I had my shillin' to the fore
when I got to Belfast.

"Here the heart was near lavin' me all out intirely. I went
wandtherin' down to the quay among the ships, and what should
there be but a ship goin' to Scotland that very night wid pigs.
In throth it was fun to see the sailors at cross-purposes wid
'em, for they didn't know the natur iv the bastes. I did. I
knew how to coax 'em. I set to an' I deludhered an' coaxed the
pigs, an' by pullin' them by the tail, knowing that if they took
a fancy I wished to pull 'em back out of the ship they'd run
might an' main into her, and so they did. Well, the sailors were
mightily divarted, an' when the pigs was aboord I wint down to
the place; an' the short iv it is that in three days I was in
Glasgow town, an' the captain an' the sailors subscribed up tin
shillins an' guv it into my hand. Well, I bought a raping-hook,
an' away I trudged till I got quite an' clane into the counthry,
an' the corn was here and there fit to cut. At last I goes an' ax
a farmer for work. He thought I was too wake to be paid by the
day, but one field havin' one corner fit to cut, an' the next
not ready, 'Paddy,' says he, 'you may begin in that corner, an'
I'll pay yees by the work yees do,' an' he guv me my breakfast
an' a pint of beer. Well, I never quit that masther the whole
harvest, an' when the raping was over I had four goolden guineas
to carry home, besides that I was as sthrong as a lion. Yees
would wonder how glad the sailors was to see me back agin, an'
ne'er a farthin' would they take back iv their money, but tuk me
over agin to Belfast, givin' me the hoighth of good thratemint of
all kinds. I did not stay an hour in Belfast, but tuk to the road
to look afther the ould man an' little Biddy. Well, sorrows the
tidins I got. The ould man had died, an' the grief an' disthress
of poor little Biddy had even touched her head a little. The
dacent people where she was, may the Lord reward 'em, though they
found little use in her, kep her, hoping I would be able to come
home an' keep her myself, an' so I was. I brought her away wid
me, an' the sight iv me put new life in her. I was set upon not
being idle, an' I'll tell yees what I did next.