candle could
not be obtained in the neighbourhood_. His last visit was to a girl in
fever, who had had three relapses. He found her father and mother
tottering on their limbs from want. The father said he had a dimness in
his eyes, and he thought he would become mad from hunger before night.

Dublin, notwithstanding its many advantages, did not escape the
all-pervading scourge. In the month of December, 1846, there were seven
hundred persons under treatment for dysentery in the South Union
Workhouse, besides convalescents. The disease proved more fatal than
cholera. Parochial meetings were held, and committees appointed to
collect funds for the relief of the starving people; besides which a
meeting of the citizens was convened at the Music Hall, on the 23rd of
December, to form a general committee for the whole city. In the
unavoidable absence of the Lord Mayor, it was presided over by Alderman
Staunton, Lord Mayor elect. The meeting was very numerously attended by
leading citizens and clergymen of various denominations. Amongst the
latter were the Most Rev. Dr. Murray, Archbishop of Dublin, and the
Provost of Trinity College. A committee was formed, whose duties were to
raise funds, and, "by a due disbursement thereof," for the relief of the
necessitous, to endeavour to mitigate "the alarming and unparalleled
distress of the poor of the city," and so arrest the progress of "a
train of evils that must otherwise follow in the track of famine."

Four days later "The General Central Relief Committee for all Ireland"
sprang into existence, under the chairmanship of the Marquis of Kildare,
the present Duke of Leinster. This became a very important and useful
body, having disbursed, during the year of its existence, over seventy
thousand pounds. Greater still were the results achieved by a committee
formed on the 13th of November, 1846, by the Society of Friends. That
admirably managed body sent members of the Society to the most
distressed parts of the country, in order to investigate on the spot the
real state of things, and report upon them. This committee received from
various parts of the world, the very large sum of L198,326 15s. 5d., two
thousand seven hundred of which remained unappropriated when they closed
their glorious labours in the cause of benevolence. But of all the
charitable organizations produced by the Famine, the most remarkable was
"The British Association for the Relief of _Extreme Distress_ in Ireland