worked with him; three pints of barley
meal was the only thing we had from Thursday before. _I had no drink for
the infant,_" she said; by which, I suppose, the wretched being meant
the nourishment which nature supplies to infants whose mothers are not
in a state of starvation; "it ate nothing. On Thursday we had nothing
but a quarter weight of _Croshanes_.[185] We had but a little
barley--about a barrel, and, God help us, we could not eat any more of
that same, as the landlord put a cross on it, I mean it was marked for
the rent." She here gave the name of the landlord, on being asked to do
so. He wanted, she said, to keep the barley for the last rent, L2 17s.
She simply and frankly acknowledged they had been taking some of it, but
their condition was such that it melted the heart of the landlord's
driver, Curley Buckley, who told them "to be taking a little of it until
the landlord would come." The poor Driscolls were not bad tenants, they
owed their landlord _the last rent only,_ but they were responsible for
another debt. "We owed," Mary Driscoll said, "ten shillings for the seed
of the barley; we would sooner die, all of us, than not to pay. Since a
fortnight," continued this wretched woman, in her rude but expressive
English; "since a fortnight past, there was not one of us eat enough any
day."

Driscoll, the husband of the last witness, was examined. He said: "If
he" (meaning the deceased) "was paid the wages due to him for working on
the road, it would have relieved him, and he might be now alive; but,"
he added, "even if we had received the money, it would be hardly
sufficient to keep us alive." Referring to his own case, he said he was
but one day working on the road, and that he was six weeks looking for
that same.

Dr. Donovan had made a _post mortem_ examination. He found the stomach
and upper part of the intestines totally devoid of food. There was water
in the stomach, but nothing else. Want, the doctor said, was the
remote--exposure to the cold the immediate--cause of death. The jury
found that the deceased, Jeremiah Hegarty, met his death in consequence
of the want of sufficient sustenance for many days previous to his
decease; and that this want of sustenance was occasioned by his not
having been paid his wages on the Public Works, where he was employed
for eight days previous to the time of his death.

Instead of providing employment for the tenants on their estates, which
the Premier, and his comm