courge of
locusts, _the hunger_ daily sweeps over fresh districts, eating up all
before it. One class after another is falling into the same abyss of
ruin.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Transactions during the Famine in Ireland, Appendix III.]

The same benevolent gentleman describes the domestic scenes he saw in
Connaught, where the poor Celts were carried off in thousands:--

'We entered a cabin. Stretched in one dark corner, scarcely visible
from the smoke and rags that covered them, were three children huddled
together, lying there because they were too weak to rise, pale and
ghastly; their little limbs, on removing a portion of the covering,
perfectly emaciated; eyes sunk, voice gone, and evidently in the last
stage of actual starvation. Crouched over the turf embers was another
form, wild and all but naked, scarcely human in appearance. It stirred
not nor noticed us. On some straw, soddened upon the ground, moaning
piteously, was a shrivelled old woman, imploring us to give her
something, baring her limbs partly to show how the skin hung loose
from her bones, as soon as she attracted our attention. Above her,
on something like a ledge, was a young woman with sunken cheeks, a
mother, I have no doubt, who scarcely raised her eyes in answer to
our enquiries; but pressed her hand upon her forehead, with a look
of unutterable anguish and despair. Many cases were widows, whose
husbands had been recently taken off by the fever, and thus their only
pittance obtained from the public works was entirely cut off. In many
the husbands or sons were prostrate under that horrid disease--the
result of long-continued famine and low living--in which first the
limbs and then the body swell most frightfully, and finally burst. We
entered upwards of fifty of these tenements. The scene was invariably
the same, differing in little but the manner of the sufferers, or of
the groups occupying the several corners within. The whole number was
often not to be distinguished, until the eye having adapted itself
to the darkness, they were pointed out, or were heard, or some filthy
bundle of rags and straw was seen to move. Perhaps the poor children
presented the most piteous and heart-rending spectacle. Many were
too weak to stand, their little limbs attenuated, except where the
frightful swellings had taken the place of previous emaciation. Every
infantile expression had entirely departed; and, in some reason and
intelligence had evidently flown. Many we