THE IRISH FAMINE. To the Editor of the Times.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 226, 29 September 1847, Page 4

THE IRISH FAMINE. To the Editor of the Times.

The Committee of the British Association for the Relief of Distress in Ireland, reading frightful accounts of pestilence and famine in the county of Mayo, and receiving urgent and perplexing appeals for relief from various tjsident clergymen and landlords, decided on despatching one of their number to the spot, to examine into the state of affairs and relieve the people promptly. As I had been loudest in my condemnation of the conduct of both English and Irish landlords, and had boasted — I now feel somewhat injudiciously — of what I would do were I in their place, I was selected for this not very agreeable service. In consequence I have been for the last few weeks resident in Letterbrick, the capital of the barony of Arderry. If you can spare me room in your columns, I propose to lay before the public as accurate a sketch as I can draw of what is actually happening here. The barony contains 185,000 acres of land, over which are scattered a population of 30,000 bouls. The little town of Letterbrick is placed in the bight of a deep bay, one of the many noble harbours with which the west of Ireland abounds. The Union workhouse is thirty-one miles distant ; besides that, there is neither hospital nor dispensary of which the poor can avail themselves at the present moment.' Of three resident Protestant clergymen, one is insane ; the other two are not on speaking terms, and will not " act" together in any way. The three Roman Catholic priests are good timple men — poor and ignorant, and possessing little influence over their flocks. Two-thirds of this vast extent of land is divided between two proprietors — Mr. Black, of Kildare, and the Mulligan, who resides in his baronial castle of Bally mulligan. The Mulligan having been an Irishman of pleasure it now * bankrupt ; he amuses him-

self in bis dominions as well he can, but has lately been cast in damages for the seduction of the daughter of a coast-guard, and is in consequence at present playing at hide and seek with the officers of the law ; he is a married man ; he is the only resident magistrate in Arderry, and as his present discreditable social position renders him only accessible on Sundays, he is utterly useless in that capacity. His tenants are not in arrear. They have been driven, ejected, and sold up with incredible severity. To give you an idea of what the people here endure and the landlords perpetrate, I will state that last week, accompanied by two creditable English witnesses, I met several emaciated cows, driven by two men, and followed by their still more emaciated owners, proceeding towards Letterbrick. I stopped them and inquired whither they were going ? The two men said they were taking them to the Letterbrick-pound for rent owing to them. The peasants declared that the rent was not due till the Ist May. Their landlord admitted this readily ; but added, that Letterbrick fair was on the 12th of April, and he feared, unless he pounded his tenants' cattle before that, that they would sell them at the fair and be off to America. So be did pound them, for a debt that was not yet due ; and the poor ignorant starved wretches allowed him to do it. Of the Mulligan's exertions and charities to meet the present crisis, it is needless to speak. He is chairman of a relief committee which he never attends ; he has given no money or food, whilst he has extracted all he can from the soil. He pays no taxes, builds no cottages or farm buildings, supports no schools or hospitals. The only duties which he attempts to perform are those which he considers he owes to himself. He and his family own about 40,000 acres of land. His uncle I saw when he came to propose to the purser on board the Horrible steamer I in charge of a cargo of seed, to let him have some on the security of his "paper at six ! months ;" and when we were landing some meal in the rain from that vessel, his brother gallopped into the town in a rickety tandem, pulled up to stare at us, and, after having played an amatory national air on a horn which he had slung round him, gallopped off again. Mr. Black, his co-proprietor, is a landlord of a very different species. He resides in Kildare, where he has a large property, and by his own acocunt, takes an active part in the duties of the county. Here he is represented by bis agent, Mr. White, a most intelligent and gentlemanlike young man, who spends a few months occasionally in Arderry, an>l is a magistrate. I will not take the liberty of saying anything more of Mr. Black, as the correspodence which I have had with him will speak for itself. I append it to this letter. A variety of small and sub-landlords, whose lives are spent in watching the growing crops and cattle of their tenants, and pouncing upon them the moment they are ripe or fit for sale, occupy the rest of the barony, and complete the misery of the people. There is one single man who believes that he ha? duties to perlorm, and does his best to fulfil them ; but as his property is small, the | good he can do is but as a drop in this ocean of human iniquity, and being a Dublin lawyer, I he is necessarily an absentee. At this moment there is no food in the I country, save what is imported by Government and the British Association ; neither have the people any money, save what they earn on the public works, which are to be stopped in May. The land is unsown — there will be no harvest. The Horrible when she was here selling seed under prime cost sold but £100 worth, and that almost entirely to the benevolent individual I have alluded to. At Killala, where the gentry clamoured loudly for seed, the Lightning was sent with 350 sacks, of which she sold one ; and at Killibegs the Horrible had no better market. There is at this moment, Sir, fever in half the houses in A rderry — I call them houses by courtesy, for they are but hollow, damp, and filthy duug heaps. The people sell their last rag for food, and are then forced to remain in their hovels until the weakest sink from bunger ; their festering corpses, which they have no means of removing, then breed a fever which carries off the rest. Efficient medicines or medical aid they have none, and if they had, what but good food could be prescribed with success to a starving man ? During the short time I have been here I have seen my fellow creatures die in the streets. I have found the naked bodies of women on the road side, and piles of coffins containing corpses left outside the cabins and in the market place. I have met mothers carrying about dead infants in- their arms until they were putrid, refusing to bury them, in the hope that the offensive sight might wring charity from the callous townspeople sufficient to protract for awhile the lives of the other children at home. During the last two days

I have buried at my own expense ttfenty bodies, which, had I not done so, would be still infecting the living. I must here pause to remind you, Sir, that I am a man of business, deliberate and calculating, nowise given to exaggeration, and that what I am detailing to you is not the recollection of some horrid nightmare, but a state of society within two days' post of London. The people here, naturally docile, become uncontrollable at the sight of provisions — not a bag of biscuit can be landed or leave the town without an armed escort, not a vessel can anchor in the bay without imminent risk of being plundered. Yesterday, three vessels, bound to the north, were becalmed off the coast ; they were instantly boarded and cleared by the famished and desperate peasantry. I have seen in the court-house an inquest holding on the body of a boy of thirteen, who, being left alone in a cabin, with a little rice and fish in his charge, was murdered by his cousin, a boy of twelve, for the sake of that j wretched pittance of food. A verdict of wilful murder has since been returned. The culprit is the most famished and sickly little creature I ever saw, and his relatives, whom I heard examined, were all equally emaciated and fever-stricken. Driven from the court by the stench of the body, I passed in the street two coffins, w'.th bodies in them, in going to my lodging from the court-house, a distance of a hundred yards. I am prepared to hear that the truth of what I have here stated has been impugned ; to be informed that I am ignorant of the habits of the people, and that I have been humbugged by Irishmen having a natural turn for humour. I am prepared to be ridiculed for my obesity, and to be told that a Loudon banker is out of his element in the romantic regions of the west. I should not wonder if the Mulligan called me out. I feel certain "he will court an inquiry." To all this I will answer, that to the truth of all I have here stated I can, fortunately, produce credible English witnesses : that if people have attempted to humbug me in the midst of the horrors which surround us, the less they boast of their mistimed humour the better ; that by showing that lam ungracefully corpulent, and an indifferent snipe shot, they will not prove themselves to be humane landlords ; and if the Mulligan exhibits any leaning towards the duello, I will inform him that although constitutionally timid, I ften take care of myself very well — having taken the precaution before I left London to borrow from an American friend, who is under some pecuniary obligations to our house, an excellent pair of Cult's revolvers — weapons, I believe, altogether new in the west of Ireland, but which are as effective in the hands of a flaccid cockney, as in the grasp of the most sinewy descendant of Brian Boru that ever bounded barefoot over a bog. I need scarcely say, Sir, that there is no such barony as Arderry in the west — no such town as Letterbrick — no such chieftain as the Mulligan of Ballymulligan — no such people as Messrs. Black and White : but there is a barony, a town, and people exactly like them, who are acting exactly in the manner I have described. If they court an enquiry, they shall have every facility given them by me for it. I will supply names, dates, and places, if they wish me to do so. I will only observe, that the day before I left town, just after I read the debate about Captain Wynne's case, in which Mr. Labouchere made such a manly and creditable answer to Major Macnaa arra, my pocket was picked in the street. I caught a boy who I fancied was the culprit, and handed him over to letter B 27. The lad exhibited the most virtuous indignation, exclaiming " Search me, and you will find that I am innocent !" He courted an enquiry. Ths matter-of-fact policeman took him at his word, and, lo ! my handkerchief was found in his possession. I have therefore inferred, that courting an inquiry when you see that it will be made whether you court it or not, is not always a proof of innocence. I have the honour to remain, Sir, your faithful servant, Jacob Omnium. April 18.