turning them for the purpose of picking
out and rejecting the bad ones. The man informed him it was the _fourth
picking_ within a fortnight. At the first picking, he said the pit
contained about sixty barrels, but they were now reduced to about _ten_.
Whilst this conversation was going on, a beggar came up and asked an
alms for God's sake. The farmer told his wife to give the poor woman
some of the potatoes, adding--"Mary, give her no bad ones, God is good,
and I may get work to support us."

"I am warranted in saying," he concludes, "that by the 10th of May there
will not be a single potato for twenty miles around Clonmel."

[98] There were twenty principal Government Food Depots established in
various parts of Ireland in 1846, at which the following quantities were
issued:--

Tons. cwts. qrs. lbs.
Indian Corn 30 00 00 00
Indian Corn Meal 11,593 11 00 19
Oat Meal 528 00 3 24
Biscuit 6 3 00 7
------ -- -- --
Total 12,157 15 0 22

R.J. ROUTH, Commissary General.

--_Famine Reports. Commissariat Series. Vol. 1, p. 2._

The number of Relief Committees in this, the first year of famine, was
600. In 1847, they numbered nearly 2,000.

[99] "On Monday at five o'clock, the public notification of the
resignation of the Ministry was made by Sir Robert Peel to a crowded
house, and in a remarkable speech.... It included an unparliamentary
eulogium on Mr. Cobden, whom it mentioned, to the surprise of the House,
by name, and it terminated with a panegyric of himself, elaborate, but
rather clumsily expressed."--_Lord George Bentinck, a Political
Biography, by Benjamin D'Israeli._

"On the conclusion of this speech cheers burst forth on all sides ...
The House adjourned to the 3rd of July. Sir Robert Peel went out resting
on the arm of his friend, Sir George Clerk, the member for Stamford. A
great crowd thronged the approaches, on seeing him all took off their
hats, opened their ranks to let him pass, and accompanied him in silence
to the door of his house."--_Memoirs of Sir Robert Peel, by M. Guizot_

[100] See Baines' History of the Cotton Manufacture.

[101] Benjamin D'Israeli.

CHAPTER V.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL Prime Minister--He confers important offices on
som