to the mercy of
the dogs, which have nothing else to feed on. On the 12th instant I went
through the parish, to give a little assistance to some poor orphans and
widows. I entered a hut, and there were the poor father and his three
children dead beside him, and in such a state of decomposition that I
had to get baskets, and have their remains carried in them."[242]

A hearse piled with coffins--or rather rough, undressed boards slightly
nailed together--each containing a corpse, passed through the streets
of Cork, unaccompanied by a single human being, save the driver of the
vehicle. Three families from the country, consisting of fourteen
persons, took up their residence in a place called Peacock Lane, in the
same city. After one week the household stood thus: Seven dead, six in
fever, one still able to be up.

The apostle of temperance, the Rev. Theobald Mathew, gave the following
evidence before a Committee of the House of Lords on "Colonization from
Ireland":--

_Question 2,359_. "You have spoken of the state of things [the Famine]
as leading to a very great influx of wretchedness and pauperism into the
City of Cork. Will you yourself describe what you have seen and known?"

"No tongue," he answers, "can describe--no understanding can
conceive--the misery and wretchedness that flowed into Cork from the
western parts of the county; the streets were impassable with crowds of
country persons. At the commencement they obtained lodgings, and the
sympathies of the citizens were awakened; but when fever began to spread
in Cork they became alarmed for themselves, and they were anxious at any
risk to get rid of those wretched creatures. The lodging-house keepers
always turned them out when they got sick. We had no additional fever
hospitals; the Workhouse was over full, and those poor creatures
perished miserably in the streets and alleys. Every morning a number
were found dead in the streets; they were thrown out by the poor
creatures in whose houses they lodged. Many of them perished in rooms
and cellars, without its being known, and without their receiving any
aid from those outside. It may appear as if the citizens of Cork and the
clergy of Cork had neglected their duty; but they did not. The calamity
was so great and so overwhelming, that it was impossible to prevent
those calamities. As one instance, I may mention that one Sunday morning
I brought Captain Forbes, who came over with the 'Jamestown,' United
States' fr