When they fled from the country, their houses were thrown
down or consumed for fuel by the neighbours who remained, and those poor
creatures have no place to lay their heads."[243]
It would be a useless and a harrowing task to continue such terrible
details, I therefore close this chapter with some account of Bantry,
that town having had the misfortune to be the rival of Skull,
Skibbereen, and Mayo during the Famine-slaughter.
The deaths at Bantry had become fearfully numerous before it attracted
any great share of public sympathy, or even, it would seem, of
Government attention. The _Southern Reporter_ of January the 5th
publishes this curt announcement from that town: "Five inquests to-day.
Verdict--Death by starvation." The jury having given in its verdict, the
foreman, on their part, proceeded to say that they felt it to be their
duty to state, under the correction of the court, that it was their
opinion that if the Government of the country should persevere in its
determination of refusing to use the means available to it, for the
purpose of lowering the price of food, so as to place it within the
reach of the labouring poor, the result would be a sacrifice of human
life from starvation to a fearful extent, and endangerment of property
and the public peace.
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