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ll confidently rely on your co-operation in devising such other means for effecting the same benevolent purpose, as may require the sanction of the Legislature." On 13 March, Parliament talked somewhat about the matter, and Sir James Graham, the Home Secretary, confessed that distress "pervades the whole of Ireland. It is to be found in every province, in every county, in every union; nay, almost in every parish in Ireland. The course Her Majesty's Government has taken, has been this. We have, in particular parts of Ireland, established depots, where food can be bought at an easy price, at the very lowest price, and, thinking that eleemosynary relief ought to be avoided as much as possible, we propose to afford, to the utmost possible extent, either by means of public works to be undertaken, or by works already established, the means by which the people may be enabled to earn wages, and so to purchase food at the moderate cost at which it will be supplied." But, in spite of all the Government could do, with the very best intentions, gaunt famine was stalking through the land, and the hungry folk could not be quiet, with the sight of food before them. They were not going to starve when they saw the bakers' shops full of bread, and the butchers', of meat. Human nature and a hungry belly could not stand it--so we can scarcely wonder at the famine riots which ensued. The shops were wrecked, the food was taken; they even laid their hands on a boat proceeding from Limerick to Clare with relief, and plundered it of its cargo of corn and maize flour. But, alas! this was only the commencement of the sad story. There was an alternative, open to those who had the money--to emigrate--and this they did--see the following, from the _Cork Reporter_, copied into the _Times_ of 18 April: "For the last fortnight our quays have been daily thronged with the fine and stalwart peasantry of this and the adjoining counties, preparing to emigrate to various parts of the trans-Atlantic world. Perhaps, upon no former occasion, even before the hope of railway employment was held out to the people, and when "Government grants" for their relief were never heard of, did the number of emigrants from this quarter exceed the proportion of this present year. Besides the various large and full-freighted vessels, which have left the quays of Cork, direct for America, several ships were despatched to the west of the county, and had no difficul
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