Agricultural labour holds out a distant prospect of reward--their
present necessities require immediate relief. Such is their state of
alarm and despair at the prospect before them, that they cannot be
induced to look beyond to-morrow; _thousands never expect to see the
harvest_. I must say the majority exhibit a great deal of patience,
meekness, and submission." Again, in the same letter: "The effects of
the Famine are discernible everywhere: not a domestic animal to be
seen--pigs and poultry have quite disappeared. The dogs have also
vanished, except here and there the ghost of one, buried in the skeleton
of one of those victims of cruelty and barbarity, which have been so
numerous here within the last two months--I allude to the horses and
donkeys that were shot. It is an alarming fact that, this day, in the
town of Ennis, there was not a stone of breadstuff of any description to
be had on any terms, nor a loaf of bread."[213]
In the chief cities, the pressure of the Famine, day by day, became
greater. In Belfast, the flourishing seat of the linen trade, one of the
gentlemen appointed to visit the different districts, with the view of
ascertaining the real amount of distress amongst the poor, writes in the
following terms to the _Northern Whig_: "There is not any necessity that
I should point out individual cases of abject want, though in my
visitations I have seen many of whose extreme destitution I could not
possibly have formed a true estimate had I not seen them.
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