Two children, the elder only six
years, went into a neighbour's house in search of food. They were asked
where their father was, and they replied that he was asleep for the last
two days. The people became alarmed, and went to his cabin, where they
found him quite dead, and the merest skeleton. The mother of those
children had died some weeks before, and their poor devoted father
sacrificed his life for them, as the neighbours found some Indian meal
in the place, which he was evidently reserving for his infant children,
whilst he suffered himself to die of starvation.
But a common effect of the Famine was to harden the hearts of the
people, and blunt their natural feelings. Hundreds, remarks this
correspondent, are daily expiring in their cabins in the three parishes
of this neighbourhood, and the people are becoming so accustomed to
death that they have lost all those kindly sympathies for the relatives
of the departed, which formerly characterized their natures. Want and
destitution have so changed them, that a sordid avarice, and a
greediness of disposition to grasp at everything in the shape of food,
has seized hold of the souls of those who were considered the most
generous and hospitable race on the face of the earth.
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