Even the houses of once
respectable tradesmen, denuded of every article of furniture, and
without fuel or bedding, presented a most affecting spectacle of want
and misery. And so impressed were the committee of the Society of
Friends in Cork with the sufferings of this class, that a separate
subscription was raised for supplying them with straw beds and some
fuel. The apparatus which this committee had erected for the making of
soup was, they thought at first, on too extensive a scale, but it was
soon found to be insufficient to meet the calls which were daily made
upon it. Their Report of the 1st of February says: "Our distribution of
soup is rapidly increasing; during the past week it averaged one
thousand and sixteen quarts a-day, and on seventh day it reached the
extent of twelve hundred and sixty-eight quarts." It went on increasing
until it had, a fortnight later, reached fourteen hundred quarts a-day.
Besides the distribution of soup by the Society of Friends, there were
four district soup houses, supplying over six-thousand quarts of soup
daily; so that, at this time, forty-eight thousand quarts of soup were
made and distributed weekly in the city of Cork.
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