THE PROGRESS OF THE FAMINE.

New Zealander, Volume 3, Issue 130, 28 August 1847, Page 3

THE PROGRESS OF THE FAMINE.

The following are extracts from letters re • ceived by Mr. Samuel B. Oldkam, of Suffolk Street, Dublin, Horn clergymen of the pariihes of Schull and Skibberc-en :—

41 Multiply all )ou have-read a thousand fold and st ill you will be under the mark. Every day opens some fearful page. Much as I had seen of it before, it was only to day that I became acquainted with it in ils real honor. We had got a supply ftom the British Association to distribute, and had been for the last few days dividing it with some degree of legulciiit.t, but to day they flocked in fioin all quarters of the parish, some out of fever beds, others out of the wretched hovels where they had lain down to wait for death — hideous, bloated, squalid figures, and some literally skeletons — their eyes dimmed, I may say with death, and the very smell oi the grave rising fiom them. They crowded round the entrance of the store, and in a few minutes all order was abandoned ; they clambeied like maniacs on each others backs, shrieking and screaming each her own mournful talc (tliyy were nearly all women)} and when I stood on the ladder leading to the store room and motioned them to be quiet for a moment, they flung apions, bags, handkerchiefs— everything they could use for canning meal, imploring for a little. It was a loathsome and heart-rending sight and almost paralysed mo into inaction. Add to this, all I have to behold in the hovels of the poor. Believe me, the tecord of what I meet on any one day would hoirify you. This will enable you to judge what joy it affords me to receive any contribution which shall enable me to alleviate any of the distress." "Fever is eveiywhere. In fact, I cannot describe to }ou what w o bet 1 , it is utterly and feat fully beyond all I cither saw or heard of, or all you could conceive. It is no unfrequenl thing for corpses to be left until nearly ptui id or half devoured by rats, and that m the bed with the d)ing" "I cannot thank you sufficiently. I can onl) implore you to persevere inyour effoits for us. We have just entered ou the actual famine and pestilence j before it was only threatening us, and yet we used to think our condition terrible." "The Lord seems determined to cut oil' our boasted millions. We have no means boidering on anything like a tithe of the requisite amount. They aie consequently dying by thousands. The whole face of our unhappy country is an immense bun il place, and when the hot weather comes on (for they are not half buiied) will come in a pebtilence worse than any of the prevailing epidemics, bad as they are. The higher ranks are even now feeling the effects in getting fever. The Lord God look upon us with pity, for we are in misery, With the little funds we have on hands m c can only give a taste to the poor creatures." The Famine. — Our readers, we think, will be grateful to us for spaiing their feelings, by not lading before them any details of tlie progress of famine and death in the South and West this week. They must not infer from this, however, that the plague has been stayed. The Cork papers are tilled viith descriptions of misery unpararelled in this or any other country. Let one fact be sufficient — at Coachford, twelve miles from Cork, the mortality is so great that forty adults died on one day. During the week ending on Monday, the Ist instant, 16S persons died in Cork workhouse. From Clones, in Monaghan, there'are very alarming accounts. Last week, the number of deaths in the workhouse was not, on any day, less than twenty ;and there are, it is said, scarcely as many healthy persons in it as are sufficient to attend the sick. Munificent Donation. — The Wesleyan Methodists of England and Wales, who have raised nearly for the relief of the Irish distress, have presented ,£5OOO to the British Association formed for that puipose, "in the full persuasion," sa)s the Wesle.> an Committee, "that its operations have been, and will continue to be, judiciously and ably directed, and.lhat its influence with Her Majesty's Government, and amongst its own subordinate agents in Ireland I and eUewhere, v\ ill be so employed us to pre- ' vent as far as possible the unworthy intrusion of any sectarian partialities or antipathies, and to secure to sufferers of every class and denomination a fair share, in propoi tion to the amount and urgency of their distress, of audience, attention, and relief." The value of the donation is in our judgment, greatly enhanced by these liberal and Christian sentiments.