The people
complained bitterly, as well they might, and begged us to give them
tickets for work, to enable them to leave the place and work on the
roads. Some were leaving the house, preferring to die in their own
hovels rather than in the Poorhouse. Their bedding consisted of dirty
straw, in which they were laid in rows on the floor; even as many as six
persons being crowded under one rug; and we did not see a blanket at
all. The rooms were hardly bearable for filth. The living and the dying
were stretched side by side beneath the same miserable covering! No
wonder that disease and pestilence were filling the infirmary, and that
the pale haggard countenances of the poor boys and girls told of
sufferings which it was impossible to contemplate without the deepest
commiseration and pity."
The carelessness and neglect of their duty by Irish landlords have so
often come before us during the progress of the Famine, that it is a
pleasure to meet with something worth quoting on the other side.
"Throughout Donegal we found," says Mr. Tuke, "the resident proprietors
doing much for their suffering tenantry; in many cases, all that
landlords could do for their relief and assistance.
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