ding
food into the country _in due time_. In this town fourteen horses died
of starvation in one week.

Whilst Bantry was in the condition described above, Dr. Stephens was
sent by the Board of Health to examine the Workhouse there. He found it
simply dreadful. Here is an extract from his report, which duty compels
me, however unwillingly, to quote: "Language," he says, "would fail to
give an adequate idea of the state of the fever hospital. _Such an
appalling, awful, and heart-sickening condition_ as it presented I never
witnessed, or could think possible to exist in a civilized or Christian
community. As I entered the house, the stench that proceeded from it was
most dreadful and noisome; but, oh! what scenes presented themselves to
my view as I proceeded through the wards and passages: patients lying
on straw, naked, and in their excrements, a light covering over them--in
two beds living beings beside the dead, in the same bed with them, and
dead since the night before." There was no medicine--no drink--no fire.
The wretched creatures, dying from thirst, were constantly crying
"Water, water," but there was no Christian hand to give them even a cup
of cold water for the love of God.

Towards the end of April, the Rev. Mr. Barry estimated the deaths from
famine, in Bantry alone, at four thousand.

Some time ago, speaking with a gentleman, a distinguished public man,
about the hinged coffin, he said: "At the time of the Famine I was a
boy, residing not far from Bantry. I have seen one of those hinged
coffins, which had borne more than three hundred corpses to the grave. I
have seen men go along the roads with it, to collect dead bodies as they
met them."

Good God! picking up human forms, made to Thy image and likeness, and
lately the tenements of immortal souls, as fishermen may sometimes be
seen on the seashore, gathering the _debris_ of a wreck after a storm!

With such specimens of the Irish Famine before us, we cannot but feel
the justice, as well as the eloquence, of the following passage: "I do
not think it possible," writes Mr. A. Shafto Adair, "for an English
reader, however powerful his imagination, to conceive the state of
Ireland during the past winter, or its present condition. Famines and
plagues will suggest themselves, with their ghastly and repulsive
incidents--the dead mother--the dying infant--the feast of
cannibals--Athens--Jerusalem--Marseilles. But these awful facts stand
forth as dark spots