Barony of Inchiquin-3,609 individuals totally destitute of provisions, and without the means of purchasing. This number will be increased to 5,000 in another month, with not the most remote prospect of repaying any thing given by way of loan. Barony of Bunratty, parish of Phenagh-555 persons requiring immediate assistance. Several families living on one scanty meal in the day for the last month; many of their families in a state of starvation; seven members of one family confined in typhus fever, without any means of support. Parishes of Bunratty and Dromline 666 inhabitants destitute of subsistence, or the means of procuring food, of whom one half will be able to repay in harvest. Parishes of Killintinan and Killeely -1,247 in absolute want of food at present, one half of whom would be able to repay a loan. Parish of Finloe-contains 817 persons, 696 of whom are in absolute want of food, and if not supplied, either gratuitously, or by labour, they must starve. Parish of Kilnasula-600 have applied for immediate assistance, twothirds of whom are paupers, the remaining third are able to purchase provisions at reduced prices, and repay in harvest. Barony of Clonderalaw-13,000 in actual want of food and seed potatoes. Parishes of Kilmaley, Kilconry, and Clonlahon-1,500 requiring assistance; one-third in absolute want lity prevailed at first, in the minds of many, with respect to the rea of food at present; one-third of the whole able to repay something. Union of Quin-3,600 individuals at present in want of food, one-third only able to repay in harvest. Half Barony of Tulla-7,552 in absolute want of provisions and have no means of purchasing, of whom 3,213 would be able to repay something. Barony of Ibrickane-5,000 without any means whatever of purchasing food-this number will be considerably increased. Baronies of Corcomroe and Burren -10,000; this number must increase as the season advances. Clare-abbey-1,179 inhabitants have applied to the committee for assistance, many of whom have been reduced to one meal a day for a considerable time. On the church door of the parish the following notice was found the Sunday previous to Easter: we give it verbatim and without any alteration in orthography : Good charitable Quality." "The poor inhabitants of Clare is actily starving living on one meal in the day and that same a bad meal, we are in hopes ye will doe something for us out of hand, we will actily Die with hunger If ye Dont luck to us out of hand as them that has a little family must Rob before The die with hunger before their Face, As the are half Dead before." There have been several instances of wretched families driven to the necessity of killing their only cow for food, from the cries of their starving children, and having no other means of appeasing their hunger. typhus fever, has made its appearance in several parts of the country. The GALWAY, April 27.-The distress of the poor increases daily new groups of beggars are constantly to be seen arriving from the country, principálly from the westward. No spot upon the face of the habitable globe presents such a scene of misery, want, and wretchedness, as this town does at present. Many are now affected with that kind of fever which is ever attendant upon á want of food, and each day lity of the extreme and universal misery in which Munster and Connaught were represented to be plunged. The wonder, however, CASTLEBAR, April 25.-The committee for managing the fund for the relief of the poor of this town, have come to a resolution to distribute bread for a month at least, which they are to purchase at three halfpence and to sell at one halfpenny per 1b. LIMERICK, April 26.-Our hearts bleed within us at the terrific aspect before us of a scarcity. Potatos are at present almost at a famine price; sixpence a stone in our present distressed and impoverished state is equal to 1s. 6d. a few years since. It is a well known fact, that the neighbouring counties are in a most deplorable state, far, far worse than our own. -Telegraph. TRALEE, May 9.-The poor of this county are actually perishing of hunger! And, bad as it is with the poor in our town, it is much worse in the country. We know that many have already died of famine.- Western Herald. CORK, May 9.-Already has starvation commenced its work in Skibbereen; it is not uncommon to see unhappy beings fainting in the streets for want of food. Flocks of starving people from the surrounding country add, by their daily increase, to the wretchedness of the town.-Southern Reporter. COUNTY OF CORK.-On the 16th a meeting of the inhabitants of the town and parish of Fermoy took place, and it was resolved "That from the very high price of potatoes and meal, from the want of employment, and other local causes, considerable distress at present prevails among the lower orders of the people in this town and neighbourhood, which is likely to continue until next harvest. the population of the town of Fermoy, they exceed 5,000 persons; and the immediate neighbourhood, who will require food in this market, may be estimated at as many more; one-third at least of whom are reduced to the greatest misery and distress, arising from the above causes, not having any visible means of support." [From the Western Herald.] COUNTY OF KERRY.-TRALEE, May 18.-We are grieved to say that, in addition to the present scarcity and general distress, the ravages of pestilence and disease are spreading dreadfully in this county. Typhus fever, the horrible though natural attendant on unwholesome and scanty food and griping poverty, now begins to rage amongst our starving population. Our Fever Hospital is crowded; and shortly, miserable wretches, sinking under famine and disease, will be seen perishing in our streets and highways, unless the evil be speedily checked by the hand of judicious benevolence; and of this we have now every hope and expectation. COUNTY OF SLIGO.-A malignant fever has appeared in the neighbourhood of the town of Sligo. In the parish of Drumeriff there are 2,000 families dependent on the supply of the market, and what is worse, they have no funds to purchase food. The committee at Sligo, on Saturday, distributed about 20 tons of potatos, which had arrived from Coleraine, for seed; and they took the precaution to cut them, that they might not be used for food. COUNTY OF CLARE.-The village of Tulla presents a most melancholy spectacle at present. Not a part of it but is crowded with persons in the utmost wretchedness, coming from all parts of the barony to purchase oatmeal. The committee have been serving it out from six in the morning until five in the evening, and one half of the poor are not supplied during that period. The purchasers are so urgent in their supplications, that it is with the utmost difficulty they can be restrained by the police and yeo will vanish when the peculiarities on the situation of the Irish peasantry are considered. may The Irish peasantry, especially in those provinces, for the most part do not buy their food. There is not a constant demand for labour in the country, sufficient to afford them annual wages. Whatever money they receive for work, is expended in clothing (and that poor and scanty) for the family: the pig in most instances pays the rent. An acre of potatos is in lieu of bread and meat: and thrice happy is he, who has an acre or two more of ground to furnish bare pasturage to a lean cow, which enable him to help out the morsel of dry potato, with the luxury of half a pint of milk to each of his children. Thus situated, if in an arid summer the roots of the potato do not swell and multiply, or if in an early and inclement winter, the frost nips, or excessive moisture rots them-what is there to save the unfortunate people from famine? They cannot go to market, to avail themselves of an abundance of potatos imported from Lancashire or Scotland; for they have not one farthing of wages saved, nor is there a demand for labour in the country. The pigs, 'on which the payment of the rent depends, are starved like the rest of the family, by the failure of their common harvest: the cow is sold, to procure the price of potatos; there is no liquid for the miserable creatures but water; and when 41. or 5l., the utmost market value of a poor man's cow, has been consumed, what resource manry, who are called in for the purpose. Upwards of 1,068. have already been subscribed in this town and its then remains to him? To what species of food can he have recourse as a substitute? The English labourer, whose staple food is wheat, finds himself, during a scarcity, in a situation widely different: and a general deficiency of the wheat harvest, with us, is a much less terrible calamity, than the failure of the potato crop in Ireland. Wheat is an article of superior quality to oats, barley, or potatos, and of higher price than all or any of them. Wheat is food of the highest price and quality; potatos of the lowest. It is almost physically impossible-it is at least a circumstance so rare, as to be excluded from among the ordinary data of calculation-that all these articles of human consumption should be at once affected by the same season. The weather which is unfavourable to any one of them, is generally favourable to some of the rest. If there is a deficiency in oats or potatos, the English labourer has still his wheaten bread: or if it is wheat that is affected by the scarcity, he can still descend from his accustomed luxury. to the use of barley, rye, or oats-or, finally, to potatos, with no other injury than a diminution of daily comfort; for on the worst of these vegetables, life and health may be supported. But the Irishman, whose potatos abandon him, can descend no lower in the scale of diet. He cannot give the market price, and offer to purchase the potatos which he has been unable to raise how, then, can he purchase barley, or wheat, or oats-all essentially vicinity for the relief of our brethren in the south and west.Belfast Chro nicle. dearer than that article, from which his poverty already debars him? Such was the general nature, such the origin and course of this terrible visitation which afflicted Ireland. It appeared suddenly; because as each peasant raised his own food on his own little piece of ground, the deficiency of the supply was not indicated, nor the consumption checked in time, by an early rise in the market price. It was confined to certain districts; both because the potato crop had failed more decidedly there than elsewhere, and because potatos constituted more exclusively there the food of the population, than in many parts of Ulster and Leinster. It continued its ravages, notwithstanding the abundant supply of food in the markets of the adjacent provinces; because the peasants of Connaught and Munster could not pay the money price which oats and potatos usually bore in those markets, and consequently, these commodities would not, by the spontaneous course of commerce be brought from places, whose opulence ensured them an advantageous sale, to a quarter where the inhabitants, though starving, had nothing to give for the food which might save them from the jaws of death. Lastly, the famine-thus sudden in its appearance-thus circumscribed as by a magic circle in its sphere of operation-thus irremediable by the spontaneous course of things, raged with extreme severity in respect both of the sufferings and of the numbers of its victims; partly, because the population being even in ordinary times reduced far below the level of easy subsistence, every morsel now withheld from them was, not a mere diminution of comfort, but a subtraction from the minimum of human subsistence; not the denial of a luxury, but the destruction of life; and partly, because, almost the whole population consisting of those who lived by manual labour, and those who were placed in easy circumstances being very few, in proportion to the number of that class among us, nearly all belonged to the ranks of the sufferers, and there were scarcely any, who from their own superfluities could administer to the wants of their neighbours. When the scarcity of food began to be very apparent, the gentry immediately addressed representations on the subject, to the Irish government. Clare was one of the districts in which it appeared the earliest, and at the assizes for that county, it occupied the attention of the grand jury. The result of their deliberations was, an application to the lord lieutenant, and the amount of the relief claimed for that single county, was no less than four hundred thousand pounds. The Irish government proceeded with equal humanity and prudence. They knew that it was impossible to take upon themselves the responsibility of subsisting a whole people, and that to pretend to do so would produce nothing but mischief. But they immediately took proper means to ascertain in a detailed form, the degree of distress which existed or was apprehended, and to what extent the gentry could or would contribute to the relief of the peasantry. A committee was then formed in Dublin, by the order of the lord lieutenant, for the purpose of communicating with the districts in which the greatest pressure was felt; and the remainder of a sum of 250,000l.,* which by former acts was left in his excellency's hands to meet contingencies that might occur, was placed at their disposal. Engineers were sent to see what works could be undertaken, that would afford occupation to the people; and by means of the funds thus supplied, many improvements of a local and private nature were begun. The labour thus called into action was not for the most part of any considerable immediate use'; but it was a channel by which food was distributed among those who must otherwise have perished. To augment the means of relief, a farther sum of 250,000l. Irish currency, was placed at the disposal of the Irish government; and they were likewise empowered to advance money for the undertaking or completion of any work, public or private, on the security of the rates thence arising or expected to arise. The gentry of the country too, and the different public bodies, exerted themselves zealously in contributing funds for the allevia tion of the evil, and in applying them in the most advantageous manner. Probably, however, more was done towards the mitigation of the distress by the spontaneous charity of Great Britain, than by any other means. When the misery, that pervaded Munster and Connaught, became known here, every heart overflowed with sympathy, and almost every purse was opened. A committee was formed in London, which, from the subscriptions of individuals, had soon munificent funds at its commands. The ex 58 Geo. III, c. 88, and 1 Geo. IV, c. 81. ample of the metropolis was everywhere imitated; nor was there a town of any note in the island, which did not hold its public meetings for promoting the success of this labour of love. Those, who were not rich enough to come forward as individual subscribers, found opportunities of obeying the impulse of humanity in the collections which were made in the churches. The theatres too, and the various places of amusement volunteered their services for the but it was a same good cause; somewhat curious result, that, with the exception of a splendid fête given at the Opera-house, and honoured by the presence of his majesty, this source of charity proved altogether unproductive. The sums collected for admission were barely sufficient to pay the expenses of the entertainment; so that there was never anything left for the purposes of charity. The people contributed directly for the relief of their fellow subjects, with a noble munificence; but they did not appear inclined to contribute indirectly through the medium of a theatre. The amusements of luxury did not accord well, in their minds, with the works of charity: the price paid for the purchase of a sensual pleasure, could never, in their given to the poor. eyes, be alms The committees in the different parts of the country corresponded with that in London, and remitted to it the sums which they collected. The total amount of contributions, exceeded 250,000l.; and the diligence and prudence exerted in the application of the fund were not less praiseworthy, than the generous feeling which had created it. The London committed established communications |