Sir
John Burgoyne, as might be expected, picked holes in both proposals. In
the carriage of soup to the sick Sir John sees difficulty on account of
the scarcity of horses, which are, he says, diminishing fast. And he
adds, that several, if not all of the judges, who were then proceeding
on circuit, were obliged to take the same horses from Dublin throughout,
as they would have no chance of changing them as usual. Then with regard
to the decent burial of the dead, Sir John thought there were legal
difficulties in the way, and that legislation was necessary before it
could be done. He failed to produce any objection against the
appointment of the medical officers. In a fortnight after, a Treasury
Minute was issued to the effect that Relief Committees should be
required to employ proper persons to bury, with as much attention to the
feelings of the survivors as circumstances would admit, the dead bodies
which could not be buried by any other means. How urgently such an order
was called for appears from the fact, that at that time in the
neighbourhood of Skull, none but strangers, hired by the clergy, could
be found to take any part in a burial.[239]
The incumbent of Skull, the Key.
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