n, but news reached her one day
that Father ---- seldom partook of her dinner. Such dreadful cases of
starvation came to his door, that he frequently gave the good lady's
dinner away. She determined that he must not sink and die; and to carry
out her view she hit upon an ingenious plan. She gave the servant, who
took the dinner to Father----, strict orders not to leave the house
until he had dined; the reason to be given to him for this was, that her
mistress wished her to bring back the things in which the dinner had
been carried to him. That priest, I am glad to say, is still among us,
and should these lines meet his eye, he will remember the circumstance,
and the honest and true authority on which it is related.

A short time after the five inquests above referred to were held, the
_Cork Examiner_ published the following extract from a private letter:
"Each day brings with it its own horrors. The mind recoils from the
contemplation of the scenes we are compelled to witness every hour. Ten
inquests in Bantry--there should have been at least _two hundred
inquests_. Every day, every hour produces its own victims--holocausts
offered at the shrine of political economy. Famine and pestilence are
sweeping away hundreds, but they have now _no_ terrors for the people.
Their only regret seems to be, that they are not relieved from their
sufferings by some process more speedy and less painful. _Since the
inquests were held here on Monday, there have been twenty-four deaths
from starvation_; and, if we can judge from appearances, before the
termination of another week the number will be incredible. As to holding
any more inquests, it is mere nonsense; _the number of deaths is beyond
counting_. Nineteen out of every twenty deaths that have occurred in
this parish, for the last two months, were caused by starvation. I have
known children in the remote districts of the parish, and in the
neighbourhood of the town, too, live, some of them for two, some three,
and some of them for _four days on water_! On the sea shore, or
convenient to it, the people are more fortunate, as they can get
_seaweed_, which, when boiled and mixed with a little Indian corn, or
wheaten meal, they eat, and thank Providence for providing them with
even that, to allay the cravings of hunger."

Although the writer of the above letter says, and with reason it would
seem, that the holding of any more inquests at Bantry was useless; the
very week after it was wr