for the manifest reason that they cannot be consumed in
the country. The United States can, from their immense surplus, supply
not only the home demand, but the deficiency of food required by the
whole world."

Was it a money question or a food question?

There was, naturally enough, a mournful sameness in the news from every
part of the country: starvation, famine, fever, death; such are the
commonest headings in the newspapers of the time. Seven deaths from
starvation near Cootehill was the announcement from a locality supposed
not to be at all severely visited. In Clifden, County Galway, the
distress was fearful; 5000 persons there were said to be trying to live
on field roots and seaweed. A Catholic priest who was a curate in the
County Galway during the Famine, but who now occupies, as he well
deserves to do, a high position in the Irish Church, has kindly supplied
the author with some of his famine experiences. There are five
churchyards in the parish where he then ministered. Four of these had to
be enlarged by one half during the famine, and the fifth, an entirely
new one, became also necessary, that there might be ground enough
wherein to inter the famine-slain people. This enlargement of burial
accommodation took place, as a rule throughout the South, West, and
North-west. One day as this priest was going to attend his sick
calls--and there was no end of sick calls in those times--he met a man
with a donkey and cart. On the cart there were three coffins,
containing the mortal remains of his wife and his two children. He was
alone--no funeral, no human creature near him. When he arrived at the
place of interment, he was so weakened by starvation himself, that he
was unable to put a little covering of clay upon the coffins to protect
them. When passing the same road next day, the priest found ravenous,
starved dogs making a horrid meal on the carcasses of this uninterred
family. He hired a man, who dug a grave, in which what may be literally
called their remains were placed. On one occasion, returning through the
gray morning from a night call, he observed a dark mass on the side of
the road. Approaching, he found it to be the dead body of a man. Near
his head lay a raw turnip, with one mouthful bitten from it. In several
of the reports from the Board of Works' inspectors, and other
communications, it was said that as the Famine progressed, the people
lost all their natural vivacity. They looked upon themselve