Trevelyan.
[95] This observation was, in all probability, levelled at the _Dublin
Evening Mail_; a newspaper which Sir Lucius would be sure to read, being
one of the organs of his party, and which had, sometime before, with a
heartless attempt at humour, called the blight "the potato mirage."
[96] The _Freeman's Journal_.
[97] _Ibid._ This correspondent tells an anecdote of a peasant whose
heroic generosity contrasts strongly with the conduct of the above noble
proprietors. He (the correspondent) stood by a pit of potatoes whilst
the owner, a small farmer, was turning them for the purpose of picking
out and rejecting the bad ones. The man informed him it was the _fourth
picking_ within a fortnight. At the first picking, he said the pit
contained about sixty barrels, but they were now reduced to about _ten_.
Whilst this conversation was going on, a beggar came up and asked an
alms for God's sake. The farmer told his wife to give the poor woman
some of the potatoes, adding--"Mary, give her no bad ones, God is good,
and I may get work to support us."
"I am warranted in saying," he concludes, "that by the 10th of May there
will not be a single potato for twenty miles around Clonmel.
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