I entered a hut, and there were the poor father and his three
children dead beside him, and in such a state of decomposition that I
had to get baskets, and have their remains carried in them."[242]
A hearse piled with coffins--or rather rough, undressed boards slightly
nailed together--each containing a corpse, passed through the streets
of Cork, unaccompanied by a single human being, save the driver of the
vehicle. Three families from the country, consisting of fourteen
persons, took up their residence in a place called Peacock Lane, in the
same city. After one week the household stood thus: Seven dead, six in
fever, one still able to be up.
The apostle of temperance, the Rev. Theobald Mathew, gave the following
evidence before a Committee of the House of Lords on "Colonization from
Ireland":--
_Question 2,359_. "You have spoken of the state of things [the Famine]
as leading to a very great influx of wretchedness and pauperism into the
City of Cork. Will you yourself describe what you have seen and known?"
"No tongue," he answers, "can describe--no understanding can
conceive--the misery and wretchedness that flowed into Cork from the
western parts of the county; the streets were impassable with crowds of
country persons.
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