The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 Part 26

His style was simple and forcible. He very seldom quoted the cla.s.sics, although he was fond of giving pa.s.sages from the English poets, more especially from Moore; but the lines which expressed the guiding principle of his life were taken from Byron:

"Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not Who would be free themselves must strike the blow."

The moment I read that pa.s.sage, he once said, I saw it was the motto for Ireland; and up to 1829, the year of Emanc.i.p.ation, he seldom spoke without quoting it. He avoided figurative language. He amused his audience with stories and old sayings which they understood and appreciated. He brought the shrewd apothegms, familiar at their own firesides, to bear upon the principles he was inculcating, but flowers of rhetoric he knew would be feeble weapons for the warfare in which he was engaged. He once indeed complimented Sheil, by calling him "the brightest star that ever rose in the murky horizon of his afflicted country;" but that suited the man and the occasion.

He had a true conception of what a great teacher ought to be; and for this reason he kept repeating his principles and his arguments in the same or almost the same words. Many an admirer of his thought he dosed his countrymen far too much with, "first flower of the earth," and "Hereditary bondsmen;" but, as he said about his attacks on men, it was _calculation_ made him do it, and he proclaimed this so late as 1846, at the Repeal a.s.sociation, in the following words: "I have often said, and repeated it over and over again, that I had found, that it was not sufficient in politics to enunciate a new proposition, one, or two, or three times. I continue to repeat it, until it comes back like an echo from the different parts of the country; then I know it is understood, and I leave it to its fate." The lesson had been learned.

Physically, O'Connell was a very powerful man. He was taller than he seemed, his muscular frame taking away, in appearance, from his height.

The earliest portraits of him make him a soft-faced athletic young man, very likely to be a dangerous antagonist in the prize ring, but his features, as given at the time, bear scarcely any resemblance to later portraits of him. His shoulders were broad, and in walking he pushed them forward alternately in a rather remarkable manner. This peculiarity, arising more from physical necessity than from choice, gave him a sort of slinging gait, which caused a Tory print to call him, derisively, "Swaggering Dan." This nickname of their favourite did not offend the people, they even thought it appropriate, there was such a dashing independence in his whole manner; and Shiel never wrote anything more felicitously true, than when he said of him--"He shoulders his umbrella like a pike, and throws out his legs, as if he were kicking Protestant ascendancy before him."

O'Connell was a liberal in the highest sense; he loved toleration; but he was also a Catholic to the heart's core--thorough, uncompromising: proud of the down-trodden Church to which he belonged, with--at first, perhaps, an intuitive feeling; later on, the proud consciousness, that his name would be linked with her struggles and her triumphs.

"One of my earliest aspirations," he more than once said, "was to do something for the good of my country, and write my name on the page of her history." He was fervently devoted to the holy practices of the Catholic Church. The fatal result of his duel with Captain D'Esterre, seems to have exercised a marked influence upon his whole life, and he frequently alluded to it in terms of the profoundest regret. It was a sight not to be forgotten, to see him attend Ma.s.s and receive Holy Communion in Clarendon Street. When he was at home, his habit was to walk from Merrion Square to that, his favourite chapel, to eight o'clock Ma.s.s. On those occasions he usually wore a very ample cloak, the collar of which concealed the lower half of his face. Thus enveloped, he entered the sanctuary with an expression of recollection so profound, that it might have been a Trappist who had entered. So it was during the hour he remained: he seemed perfectly unconscious of any human creature being in the place, except the priest at the altar before him. He seldom used a prayer-book, and his eyes were never once raised during the whole time. Buried in his great cloak, he moved noiselessly out, as he had entered--a bright example,--a very model,--to the whole congregation.

The remaining reports of the Relief Commissioners do not call for any very lengthened notice. The fourth of the series was published on the 19th of July, at which time 1,823 electoral divisions were receiving relief under the Act. They say: "By an arrangement with the Commissary General, we are clearing out the Government depots of provisions, by orders on them in lieu of so much money. These depots were established at an anxious period of a prospect of great deficiency of supplies, which no longer exists." It is needless to repeat here what has been abundantly proved before, that the people died of starvation within the shadow of those sealed up depots, and they would not be opened;--they were opened when the supplies they contained were not required, there being plenty in the market.

From the accountant's department we learn that 2,643,128 rations were being daily issued, which it was hoped would be the maximum relief that the Commissioners would be called on to administer; 79,636 of these were sold. This shows an increase of daily rations from last report of 291,028. The fall in provisions had reduced the price of each ration from 2-1/2d. to 2d. The amount given in loans and grants was now reduced by about 3,000 a day, the expenditure in that way being then about 20,000 a day. The aggregate amount of money issued up to the 19th of July was 1,010,184 7s. 10d. to 1,803 electoral divisions. The cost of the Government staff for superintending the issuing of relief, is set down at two and a half per cent.--6d. in the pound,--a low figure, indeed, but it must be taken into account that they only _superintended_; the committees did the actual work of giving out the relief. The issue of cooked food was opposed by the people in some places, and this opposition was punished, by a reduction being made in the quant.i.ty of rations issued in such places. In a fortnight, about 8,000 tons of the food in the Government depots were given in lieu of money, the money value of which was 98,728, the daily market price being that charged by the Commissary General. The arrangement was carried out in this way: There was issued on the 1st of June a circular to the inspecting officer of each Union, by virtue of which an order on the Government depot was given to the Finance Committee of the Union, instead of the amount (in cash) of the fortnightly estimate sent in of the sum required for each electoral division of that Union; but the whole fortnightly estimate was not usually supplied in meal only, to any one electoral division; it was given partly in meal and partly in money.

At this time there were thirty-three Commissariat depots, and sixteen British a.s.sociation depots.

By circular No. 58 it was announced that after the 15th of August the support of dest.i.tute persons was to be provided for under the new Poor Law, 10 Vic., c. 31. All relief committees were warned to be prepared to close their arrangements for the issue of rations, when the funds provided for the estimates, ending on the 13th of August, would be expended.

The hope expressed in the fourth report, that the Commissioners had arrived at the maximum daily relief which the country required, was not verified by fact. The fifth report was published on the 17th of August.

At that date there were 1,826 electoral divisions under the Act. The maximum relief within the period embraced in the report was: Gratuitous rations per day, 2,920,792; sold, 99,920; total, 3,020,712 rations daily![266] Thus, considerably more than one-third of the whole population was living on what may be termed out-door relief. This, the highest point, was reached on the 3rd of July; the daily rations had, on the 1st of August, come down to 2,467,989 gratuitous, and 52,387 sold rations, being a total of 2,520,376 rations.

The absolute termination of advances on account of temporary relief was fixed by the Act of Parliament for the end of September. The number of temporary fever hospitals established under the Act 10 Vic., c. 22, amounted at the date of the fifth report to 326.

The Relief Commissioners published their sixth report on the 11th of September. It was a hopeful one. The crops were abundant, and a rapid decrease in the number of rations issued was the result, more especially from the middle of August. Out of 127 Unions, which were under the Act, fifty-five had had no advances made to them, on estimate, for any period after the 15th of August; twenty-six more ceased to call for advances on the 29th of August; and the remainder were to cease on the 12th of September, with the exception of the advances to the fever hospitals, which were continued to the 30th of September.

The Commissioners expressed the opinion that the discontinuance of relief had not been attended by the suffering which might have been apprehended. They say the relief "was made a system of bonus rather than of necessity, which increased the expenditure in an enormous degree."

We learn from this sixth report that the Commissioners had expended a sum approaching 2,000.000 within a period of eight months, through the agency of upwards of two thousand committees, const.i.tuted by general regulation, and subject only to a very general control. Such being the case, the testimony borne by the inspecting officers to those committees, is highly creditable to them; the inspecting officers, says the report, "express their belief that there has been almost a total absence of misappropriation of _money_ by committees."

On the 28th of August the number of daily rations issued was down to 967,575.

The seventh and last report of the Commissioners under the Relief Act, bears date the 15th of October. In it they say, they have the satisfaction of believing, that the Act was thoroughly successful in its primary object; and they did not consider the expenditure excessive in proportion to the object. The entire outlay under the Act was 1,676,268 11s. 7d.,[267] a part of which was a free gift from the State, the remainder a charge to be repaid by the Unions, by a percentage on the rateable property, which, in the opinion of the Commissioners, should in no case exceed three shillings in the pound. The summary of the accounts department informs us that the rations issued on the 11th of September, the day previous to the final stoppage of relief under the Act, were 442,739, being a decrease from the 28th of August of 599,816 daily rations.

The expenditure under the Act is thus detailed:--

To Sir R. Routh for provisions from depots ... 136,795 0 8

_Money_ advanced fortnightly to the several electoral divisions for relief ... 1,420,417 14 11

To fever hospitals ... 119,055 16 0

The advances at one time exceeded 60,000 a-day, distributed over nearly two thousand accounts.

The sum given to Sir R. Routh for the food in the depots shows there were about twelve thousand tons of provisions in them.

The sum set down to the fever hospitals includes the erection and furnishing of the fever sheds. In addition to this amount, 4,479 was expended in providing proper medical inspection and superintendance in localities in which great sickness prevailed, and 60,000 was advanced for the enlargement of the Workhouses, princ.i.p.ally by the erection of fever wards.[268]

In the appendix to this, their last report, the Commissioners bear honourable testimony to the manner in which the people behaved. They say: "The order and good conduct of the peasantry, and of the people generally, notwithstanding the great influx of paupers into the towns, is highly to be commended. All admit, that the resignation and forbearance of the labouring cla.s.ses was _astonishing_, when it is remembered with what rapidity the real famine encompa.s.sed them."

FOOTNOTES:

[246] The following were the Commissioners appointed under the Act: Sir John F. Burgoyne, Thomas N. Redington, Esq., Under Secretary; Edward T.B. Twistleton, Esq., Colonel Duncan M'Gregor, Commissary-General Sir Randolph J. Routh, and Colonel Harry D. Jones.

[247] The number of electoral divisions is, at present, 3,438, embraced within 163 Unions.

[248] _Sunday Observer_; which journal should, for the information of posterity, have placed upon record what, if any, were the other courses in the _carte_ at the Reform Club, the day on which M. Soyer's Irish Soup No. 1 was so highly approved of.

[249] _The comparative nutritive and pecuniary value of various kinds of cooked food_, by John Aldridge, M.D., M.R.I.A., read at a meeting of the Royal Dublin Society on the 6th of April, 1847.

[250] _Freeman's Journal_, April 6th.

[251] _Evening Packet_.

[252] He did not even escape the shafts of ridicule. A writer in the Dublin _Nation_, imitating the Witches' scene in Macbeth, thus attacked him:--

_1st Cook_--Round about the boiler go, In twice fifty gallons throw-- Water that in noisome tank Mossed with verdure rich and rank.

_2nd Cook_--Shin of beef from skinny cow In the boiler then you'll throw; Onion sliced and turnip top, Crumb of bread and cabbage chop.

_3rd Cook_--Scale of cod fish, spiders' tongues, Tomt.i.ts' gizzards, head and lungs Of a famished, French-fed frog, Root of phaytee digged in bog, etc.

It is only just to M. Soyer to say that his soup kitchen was regarded by good judges as a clever and convenient contrivance for its purpose. The building in which it was placed was constructed of wood, and was about forty feet by twenty. It consisted of one apartment. In the centre was a large steam boiler mounted on wheels, and arranged around were a number of metallic box-shaped vessels, also mounted on wheels, in which the materials for the soup were placed. These were heated by steam conveyed by iron pipes from the central boiler, and by a slow digestive process the entire of the nutriment contained in the materials were supposed to be extracted without having its properties deteriorated. When the soup was ready, the recipients were admitted by a narrow entrance at one side of the house, one by one, each receiving a large bowl of soup, and, having drank it, [five minutes was the time allowed for drinking it,]

they received an allowance of bread or a biscuit, and were dismissed by another door in the rere of the building. In this manner M. Soyer calculated he would be able to give one meal every day to at least five thousand persons, from an establishment the size of the one at the Royal Barracks. At the entrance, in the centre, was the weighing machine.

There was what was called a glaze-pan over the steam boiler capable of holding three hundred gallons, and, at the end, an oven to bake one hundred weight of bread at a time, and all heated by the same fire.

Round the two supports of the roof were circular tin boxes for the condiments. Seven feet from the ground at each corner was placed a safe five feet square and seven feet high, with sides of wire for ventilation, which contained respectively meat, vegetables, grain, and condiments. At the same elevation as the safes were sixteen b.u.t.ts, containing _seventeen hundred and ninety-two gallons of water_.

[253] The Commission of 1809 on the reclamation of the bogs of Ireland returned as improvable:

1,576,000 acres of flat bog; 1,254,000 acres of mountain top bog; 2,070,000 acres of convertible mountain bog.

--------- 4,900,000 acres in all.

[254] "Waste Lands of Ireland: Suggestions for their immediate reclamation, as a means of affording reproductive employment for the able-bodied dest.i.tute. By James f.a.gan, Esq., M.P. for the Co. Wexford."

Dublin: James McGlashan, 1847. Halliday Pamphlets, vol. 1991.

[255] Letters to Lord John Russell, p. 9.

[256] _Ib._, p. 12.

[257] Commissariat Correspondence, p. 452. G.P. Scrope's letters to Lord John Russell, p. 58.

[258] Ireland: Historical and Statistical. By George Lewis Smyth, vol.

2, p. 452.

[259] "In the neighbourhood of Mullinahone I witnessed the daily painful sight of the perversion of the labour of this country to the most profitless ends. Roads, which are now more than ever necessary to be kept in order, are in the course of obstruction, whilst waterlogged lands, reclaimable bottoms, and mountain slopes stand out in d.a.m.ning evidence of the indolence, neglect, and folly of man."--_Letter of Lieut.-Colonel Douglas to Sir S. Routh, dated Clonmel, 28th January, 1847. Commissariat Series, part 2._ Strong language from a Government official.