ld plead amounted at the last census to eight thousand seven hundred
souls, but, owing to the dreadful ravages of famine and disease, it is
generally considered that two thousand have perished during the
past brief season of unexampled horror. Notwithstanding the relief
administered through the medium of public works, and the subsequent
distribution of rations, many instances have recently occurred of horses
being stolen and destroyed for human food, and great distress still
extensively prevails. During previous years, every available spot of
land was alternately cultivated with potatoes and wheat or oats; but
this year, owing to the utter destitution of the farmers, generally
speaking, it is computed that one-third of the land last year under
the potato crop still lies waste, while almost all the stubble ground
remains untouched. If then, after the harvest of last year, when all the
existing tillage was cultivated, and some proportion of the potato crop,
such as it was, was available for food, such wholesale destruction of
human life has taken place in this district, under circumstances of
such a character that their mere recital fills the mind with horror and
dismay--if, after two thousand have been swept away by the devastating
power of famine and disease, four thousand eight hundred and twenty-nine
of the survivors are at this moment kept from impending death by the
daily distribution of rations,--what are we reasonably to anticipate for
the time to come, unless prompt and energetic measures are adopted to
provide means for sustaining those who may be spared?"

CONTINUED POLITICAL AGITATION.--DREADFUL PREVALENCE OF CRIME.

Unfortunately, the progress of crime and outrage kept pace with that of
famine and pestilence, until the moral condition of the people seemed to
be worse than their physical. Men were murdered in the open day, in the
presence of numbers who made no effort to stop the deed of blood, and
who would make no revelations to the officers of justice calculated to
bring punishment upon the coldblooded assassins. The motives for these
sanguinary outrages were various: sometimes it was purely agrarian;
sometimes for the purpose of plundering food or money. Some were
murdered from purely political hostility, and others on account of
their prominence in religious movements distasteful to the people.
Intolerance, contempt for law, a sense of wrong under the influence of
the laws of landlord and tenant the