vivors of this terrible time numbered heroes drawn from all
classes of life; and it would have been well if the lesson of universal
charity then practically demonstrated had been allowed to sink into all
hearts.

Instead I will quote the following extract from John Mitchel's _History
of Ireland_, a thick, paper-bound volume, which, at the price of
eighteenpence, has circulated enormously among the Irish, not only at
home, but in Glasgow and America.

On page 243:--'That million and a half of men, women, and children were
carefully, prudently, and peacefully _slain_' [the italics are those of
Mitchel] 'by the English Government. They died of hunger in the midst of
abundance which their own hands created; and it is quite immaterial to
distinguish those who perished in the agonies of famine itself from
those who died by typhus fever, which in Ireland is always caused by
famine.

'Further, this was strictly an _artificial_ famine--that is to say, it
was a famine which desolated a rich and fertile island that produced
every year abundance and superabundance to sustain all her people and
many more. The English, indeed, call that famine a dispensation of
Providence, and ascribe it entirely to the blight of the potatoes. But
potatoes failed in like manner all over Europe, yet there was no famine
save in Ireland. The British account of the matter, then, is first a
fraud; second, a blasphemy. The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato
blight, but the English created the famine.'

Such pestilential perversion of truth is freely circulated and firmly
believed, for contradiction never penetrates to those gulled by these
lies. In America the gutter press section of journalism is esteemed at
its true worth, and is as harmless as a few squibs. In Ireland what is
seen in bad print is always believed, and is corroborated by the lower
class of priest. When I say so much I am simply indicating a national
sore, but it needs a wiser physician than myself to apply a successful
remedy.

Perhaps with the spread of education may arise the same power to
discriminate between the true and false published in the papers that is
a characteristic of both the English and Scottish. As it is, the
Irishman believes whatever he reads in print; and in most cases the
solitary paper that he reads is one full of treason and untruths.

When the famine took place, the Irish fled as from a plague to America,
and when they landed there both men and women were the