ional
misfortune but a national sin crying loudly to every Christian citizen
to do his utmost to remove it. No one of us can have a right to enjoy
either riches or repose until to the extent of his ability he strive to
wash himself of all share in the guilt of this fearful inequality, which
will be a blot in the history of our country and make her a byword among
the nations."

The weekly returns of the dead were like the bulletins of a fierce
campaign. As the end of the year approached, villages and rural
districts, which had been prosperous and populous a year before, were
desolate. In some places the loss amounted to half the resident
population. Even the poorhouses shut up, and paupers did not escape.
More than one in six perished of the unaccustomed food. The people did
not everywhere consent to die patiently. In Armagh and Down groups of
men went from house to house in the rural districts and insisted on
being fed. In Tipperary and Waterford corn stores and bakers' shops were
sacked. In Donegal the people seized upon a flour-mill and pillaged it.
In Limerick five thousand men assembled on Tory Hill and declared that
they would not starve. A local clergyman restrained them by the promise
of speedy relief. "If the Government did not act promptly, he himself
would show them where food could be had." In a few cases crops were
carried away from farms.

The offences which spring from suffering and fear were heard of in many
districts, but they were encountered with instant resistance. There were
thirty thousand men in red jackets, carefully fed, clothed, and lodged,
ready to maintain the law. Four prisoners were convicted at the Galway
assizes of stealing a filly, which they killed and ate to preserve their
own lives. In Enniskillen two boys under twelve years of age were
convicted of stealing one pint of Indian-meal cooked into "stirabout,"
and Chief Justice Blackburn vindicated the outraged law by transporting
them for seven years. Other children committed larcenies that they might
be sent to jail where there was still daily bread to be had. In Mayo the
people were eating carrion wherever it could be procured, and the
coroner could not keep pace with the inquests; for the law sometimes
spent more to ascertain the cause of a pauper's death than would suffice
to preserve his life.

The social disorganization was a spectacle as afflicting as the waste of
life; it was the waste of whatever makes life worth possessing. A