s, to prevent the recurrence of famine next year."

The effect of the dismissals soon began to manifest itself in
complaints and remonstrances. Of Balla, in the county of Mayo, we read
that the order was rigidly enforced there, that the people had no seed
to sow their land, and that there was no provision for supplying them
with food. All remonstrance with the inspecting officer, writes a
correspondent from Ballyglass, in the same county, is useless; he said
the Government orders were peremptory. No seed. No food.

Ballnigh, Co. Cavan: Twenty per cent. dismissed, no provision whatever
having been made for their support.

Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford: No provision made to supply food to the
dismissed labourers.

Clones, Co. Monaghan: No provision.

Maryborough, Queen's Co.: No means of support.

Clonmel, Tipperary: No provision. The relief committee under the new Act
is in course of organization, but some time must elapse before it can
afford relief.

From persons who were in possession of some land, the first twenty per
cent., as we have seen, were to be selected for dismissal, but in
Kilnaleck, in the County of Cavan, all those employed on the public
works were about equally destitute, so that the twenty per cent. with
land could not be furnished: lots had to be cast, and those on whom the
lot for dismissal fell received it like a sentence of death. Of course
the Board of Works felt they were best carrying out the intentions of
Government by dismissing the full twenty per cent. at Kilnaleck.

The state of things in Cashel was this: the twenty per cent. were
dismissed before the committee had any preparation made, or was, in
fact, appointed. The old committee had emphatically protested against
the dismissal, and published a resolution condemnatory of it, as an
inexcusable cruelty. Although twenty per cent. of the labouring
population were turned adrift in that locality, not one supernumerary
was disemployed. No pay-clerk lost his salary, though his labour was
diminished by one-fifth; no check-clerk was dismissed, though there
were twenty per cent. fewer to check; no steward or under-steward was
displaced. Such are specimens of the accounts from nearly every part of
the country.

Threatening meetings of the disemployed began to be held. Towards the
end of April we read of vast crowds assembling in the neighbourhood of
Drone, county Tipperary, crying aloud for food and employment. They
consisted chiefly of the dism