--Quantity of wheat there--Five hundred quarters purchased--The
French--The Irish handmill, or quern, revived--Samples of it
got--Steel-mills--Mill-power useless from failure of
water-supply--Attempt to introduce whole corn boiled as food, 221

CHAPTER IX.

The Landlords and the Government--Public Meetings--Reproductive
Employment demanded for the People--The "Labouchere"
Letter--Presentments under it--Loans asked to construct
Railways--All who received incomes from land should be
taxed--Deputation from the Royal Agricultural Society to the Lord
Lieutenant--They ask reproductive employment--Lord Bessborough
answers cautiously--The Prime Minister writes to the Duke of
Leinster on the subject--Views expressed--Defence of his Irish
Famine policy--Severe on the Landlords--Unsound principles laid down
by him--Corn in the haggards--Mary Driscoll's little stack of
barley--Second Deputation from the Royal Agricultural Society to the
Lord Lieutenant--Its object--Request not granted--The Society
lectured on the duties of its Members--Real meaning of the
answer--Progress of the Famine--Deaths from starvation--O'Brien's
Bridge--Rev. Dr. Vaughan--Slowness of the Board of Works--State of
Tuam--Inquest on Denis M'Kennedy--Testimony of his Wife--A
fortnight's Wages due to him--Received only half-a-crown in three
weeks--Evidence of the Steward of the Works; of Rev. Mr. Webb; of
Dr. Donovan--Remarks of Rev. Mr. Townsend--Verdict--The _Times_ on
the duties of Landlords--Landlords denounce the Government and the
Board of Works--Mr. Fitzgerald on the Board and on the
farmers--Meeting at Bandon--Lord Bernard--Inquest on Jeremiah
Hegarty--The Landlord's "cross" on the barley--Mary Driscoll's
evidence; her husband's--_Post-mortem_ examination by Dr.
Donovan--The Parish Priest of Swinford--Evictions--The _Morning
Chronicle_ on them--Spread and Increase of Famine--The question of
providing coffins--Deaths at Skibbereen--Extent of the Famine in
1846--Deaths in Mayo--Cases--Edward M'Hale--Skibbereen--The diary of
a day--Swelling of the extremities--Burning beds for fuel--Mr.
Cummins's account of Skibbereen--Killarney Relief Committee--Father
O'Connor's Statement--Christmas Eve!--A visit to Skibbereen twenty
years after the great Famine, 243

CHAPTER X.

The Landlo