That priest, I am glad to say, is still among us,
and should these lines meet his eye, he will remember the circumstance,
and the honest and true authority on which it is related.
A short time after the five inquests above referred to were held, the
_Cork Examiner_ published the following extract from a private letter:
"Each day brings with it its own horrors. The mind recoils from the
contemplation of the scenes we are compelled to witness every hour. Ten
inquests in Bantry--there should have been at least _two hundred
inquests_. Every day, every hour produces its own victims--holocausts
offered at the shrine of political economy. Famine and pestilence are
sweeping away hundreds, but they have now _no_ terrors for the people.
Their only regret seems to be, that they are not relieved from their
sufferings by some process more speedy and less painful. _Since the
inquests were held here on Monday, there have been twenty-four deaths
from starvation_; and, if we can judge from appearances, before the
termination of another week the number will be incredible. As to holding
any more inquests, it is mere nonsense; _the number of deaths is beyond
counting_. Nineteen out of every twenty deaths that have occurred in
this parish, for the last two months, were caused by starvation.
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