austing his vigour during a long day to earn
a shilling, to purchase with that shilling a sufficiency of daily food
for his generally large and helpless family?' Father Mathew earnestly
pleaded for out-door relief, in preference to the workhouse,
foreseeing the danger of sundering the domestic bonds, which operate
so powerfully as moral restraints in Ireland. The beautiful picture
which he drew of the Irish peasant's home in his native land was
not too highly coloured, as applied to the great majority of the
people:--'The bonds of blood and affinity, dissoluble by death alone,
associate in the cabins of the Irish peasantry, not only the husband,
wife, and children, but the aged parents and the married couple and
their destitute relatives, even to the third and fourth degree of
kindred. God forbid that political economists should dissolve these
ties! should violate these beautiful charities of nature and the
gospel! I have often found my heart throb with delight when I beheld
three or four generations seated around the humble board and blazing
hearth; and I offered a silent prayer to the great Father of all that
the gloomy gates of the workhouse should never separate those whom
such tender social chains so fondly link together.'

The following is a tabular view of the whole amount of voluntary
contributions during the Irish famine, which deserves a permanent
record for the credit of our common humanity:--

L s. d. L s. d.
Local contributions officially reported
in 1846 104,689 18 1
Local contributions officially reported
in 1847 199,569 4 1
British Relief Association, total
received 470,041 1 2
say five-sixths for Ireland 391,700 17 8
General Central Relief Committee,
College Green 83,934 17 11
Less received from British Relief
Association 20,190 0 0
_____________ 63,744 17 11
Irish Relief Association, Sackville
Street 42,446 5 0
Relief Committee of the Society of
Friends, London 42,905 12 0
Central Relief Committee of the
Society of Friends, Dublin 198,313 15 3
Less received from Committee of the