he winding sheet of the dead!" The same writer says: "In this town have
I witnessed to-day, men--fathers, carrying perhaps their only child to
its last home, its remains enclosed in a few deal boards patched
together; I have seen them, on this day, in three or four instances,
carrying those coffins under their arms or upon their shoulders, without
a single individual in attendance upon them; without mourner or
ceremony--without wailing or lamentation. The people in the street, the
labourers congregated in town, regarded the spectacle without surprise;
they looked on with indifference, because it was of hourly
occurrence.[189]

The statements in the public journals about the effects of the famine in
and about Skibbereen were so new and appalling that many people thought
them greatly exaggerated. Finding this feeling to exist, and perhaps to
some extent sharing in it, Mr. Cummins, a magistrate of Cork, proceeded
to Skibbereen, to examine for himself the state of things there. He was
not only convinced but horrified. He published the result of his visit
in a letter to the Duke of Wellington, in which he begged that exalted
personage to call the Queen's attention to the fearful sufferings of her
people. Convinced that he was destined at least, to witness scenes of
real hunger and starvation, Mr. Cummins informs us that he took with him
as much bread as five men could carry. He began his inquiries at a place
called South Reen, in the parish of Myross, near Skibbereen.[190] Being
arrived at the spot, he was surprised to find the wretched hamlet
apparently deserted. There was no external appearance of life--silence
reigned around. On entering some of the cabins he soon discovered the
cause. He was at once confronted with specimens of misery, which, he
says, no tongue or pen could give the slightest idea of. In the first
cabin he entered he found six famished, ghastly skeletons, to all
appearance dead, huddled in a corner on a little filthy straw, their
sole covering being what seemed a piece of ragged horsecloth; their
miserable shriveled limbs were hanging about as if they did not belong
to their bodies. He approached them in breathless horror, and found by a
slow whining moan that they were alive--four children, a woman, and what
had once been a man--all in fever. Mr. Cummins met other cases as
fearful, more especially one similar to that described by the writer
quoted above, where a corpse was lying amongst the surviving mem