[266] "At length, in seventh month, this system of relief reached its height. In that month, 3,020,712 persons received daily rations. Even under this gigantic system of relief, we found that our distribution could not be discontinued. There were several classes of persons whose claims we were bound to recognise, and in these cases relief was still afforded, though on a reduced scale, and with considerable caution."—Transactions during the Famine in Ireland. By the Society of Friends.
[267] This was up to the 16th of October only, but on the 31st of December, when the account was finally closed, Mr. Bromley, the head accountant, says,—Total expended to this day, £1,724,631 17s. 3d.
[268] Irish Crisis.
CHAPTER XIV.
The Fever Act--Central Board of Health--Fever Hospitals--Changes in the Act--Outdoor Attendance--Interment of the Dead--The Fever in 1846--Cork Workhouse--Clonmel--Tyrone--Newry--Sligo--Leitrim--Roscommon--Galway --Fever in 1847--Belfast--Death-rate in the Workhouses--Swinford--Cork--Dropsy--Carrick-on-Shannon --Macroom--Bantry Abbey--Dublin--Cork Street Hospital--Applications for Temporary Hospital accommodation--Relapse a remarkable feature--Number of cases received--Percentage of Mortality--Weekly Cost of Patients--Imperfect Returns--Scurvy--The cause of it--Emigration--Earlier Schemes of Emigration--Mr. Wilmot Horton--Present Stats of Peterborough (Note)--Various Parliamentary Committees on Emigration--Their Views--The Devon Commission--Its Views of Emigration--A Parliamentary Committee opposed to Emigration--Statistics of Emigration--Gigantic Emigration Scheme--Mr. Godley--Statement to the Premier--The Joint Stock Company for Emigration--£9,000,000 required--How to be applied--It was to be a Catholic Emigration--Mr. Godley's Scheme--Not accepted by the Government--Who signed it--Names (Note)--Dr. Maginn on the Emigration Scheme--Emigration to be left to itself--Statistics of Population--The Census of 1841--Deaths from the Famine--Deaths amongst Emigrants--Deaths amongst those who went to Canada--Emigration to the United States--Commission to protect Emigrants--Revelations--Mortality on board Emigrant Ships--Plunder of Emigrants--Committee of Inquiry--Its Report--Frauds about Passage Tickets--Evidence--How did any survive?--Remittances from Emigrants--Unprecedented--A proof of their industry and perseverance.
In anticipation of fever and other epidemics resulting from the Famine, a Fever Act was passed for Ireland in the early part of the Session of 1846, by which the Lord Lieutenant was empowered to appoint Commissioners of Health, not exceeding five in number, who were to act without salaries. They constituted what was called the Central Board of Health. He was further empowered to appoint medical officers for the Poor Law Unions, with salaries to be paid by the Treasury; such medical officers to be under the control of the guardians. The Board of Health was authorized to direct guardians to provide fever hospitals and dispensaries, together with medicines and all other necessaries for those hospitals. This Act was to cease in September, 1847, but in the April of that year an Act to amend and extend it to November, 1847, was passed. Eventually, it remained in its amended form in force until the end of the Parliamentary Session of 1850.
The changes made by this second or amended Fever Act were of a very extensive kind. By the previous one medical relief was to be given through the guardians of the poor; by the Act as amended, the Board of Health was empowered to certify to the Relief Commissioners, the necessity of medical relief being afforded, in any electoral division in which there was a Relief Committee. It was also to direct such Committees to provide fever hospitals, and every other thing necessary for the treatment of patients. And further: the Relief Commissioners, on the certificate of the Board of Health, were to issue their order to Relief Committees, to provide medical attendance, medicines, and nutriment, if necessary, for such patients as were not received into hospital, either because there was not accommodation for them, or because it might endanger their lives to remove them. The Board of Health acted as little as possible upon this clause; holding that, under existing circumstances, it was impossible to treat patients with advantage in their own houses. Those hospitals and dispensaries were managed by the Relief Committees, under the control of the Relief Commissioners, appointed to carry out the Act 10 Vic., cap. 7. By the 16th clause of the amended Fever Act, provision is made "for the proper and decent interment of the deceased destitute persons who shall die of fever or any other epidemic disease in any electoral division or district, for which any Relief Committee shall have been constituted."
Whilst this very extensive system of medical relief was established and carried out under the second Bill, the guardians of the poor continued to use the powers granted to them in the former Bill, of giving medical relief. The returns from these two sources give, respectively, the number of fever cases received into their hospitals, but we have no authentic means of determining the number of persons who died of fever in their own houses, or on the highways and byways, as they wandered about in search, of food. Such cases must have been very numerous.
Although fever or other epidemics did not arise to an alarming extent in 1846, still, that year showed a decided increase of them over previous years. The following summary, derived from circulars issued, shows the origin and progress of fever in 1846. "Fever began in Mitchelstown, County Cork. It attacked equally those in good and bad health; but in some instances, as in Innishannon and in Cove, many, in the best health; while in Mitchelstown, the majority had previously suffered from privation. Young persons appear to have been the subject of the epidemic, more than those of more advanced life. The pressure from without upon the city [of Cork] began to be felt in October; and in November and December, the influx of paupers from all parts of this vast county was so overwhelming, that, to prevent them from dying in the streets, the doors of the Workhouse were thrown open, and in one week, 500 persons were admitted without any provision, either of space or clothing, to meet so fearful an emergency. All these were suffering from famine, and most of them from malignant dysentery or fever. The fever was, in the first instance, undoubtedly confined to persons badly fed, or crowded into unwholesome habitations; and, as it originated with the vast migratory hordes of labourers and their families congregated upon the public roads, it commonly was termed 'the road fever.' In Cloughjordan, County Tipperary, the fever cases doubled in 1846 what they had been in the previous year. The disease commenced in Clonmel in November. The accounts from the Counties of Limerick and Kerry do not record any increased sickness during this year. The epidemic commenced in the County of Tyrone in the December of 1846. Young persons were those chiefly attacked there. The fever commenced at Loughgall, County Armagh, in the end of this year. The lower classes were chiefly attacked; the majority of those affected having been previously in bad health. The epidemic materially declined as the poor were better fed. The fever was frequently preceded by scurvy. Individuals at the age of puberty were chiefly attacked,—females more generally than males. In Newry, dysentery existed as an epidemic during the autumn of 1846, being very fatal among the old and infirm, who, if not carried off, were so debilitated by its effects, as to render them an easy prey to the fever which followed. In Dublin, although the great outbreak of the fever was in 1847, yet, cases were noticed to have occurred in the latter end of 1846, in a greater proportion than usual. Those first attacked were individuals who had been reduced by bad diet or insufficiency of food, and throughout the continuance of the epidemic, the lower classes were chiefly affected. In many cases, the fever set in immediately after recovering from the effects of starvation, and although scurvy preceded the disease, neither it nor purpura was noticed to have occurred as a concomitant symptom. In the Province of Connaught, the epidemic commenced in many places during the year 1846, especially in the Counties of Sligo and Leitrim; in the former locality the young were chiefly attacked; in the latter fever broke out so early as June, when upwards of two hundred cases were at one time in the Workhouse of Carrick-on-Shannon; while, in the remote northern hilly districts of the county, it did not appear until December, 1847; those attacked were, for the most part, reduced from want of food. In some parts, the fever was preceded by aphthous ulcers on the tongue and gums; young persons were those chiefly attacked, and females more than males. In the County of Roscommon, the previous health of the population was much impaired; bowel complaints were frequent; the fever commenced in the end of 1846 or beginning of 1847, and was very prevalent. The Workhouse of Castlerea was one of the most severely afflicted during the epidemic, of any similar class of institution in Ireland—as many as fifty persons a week having died at one period subsequent to this—and, for a long time, all attempt at separate burial was found impossible. In the County Galway the epidemic of both dysentery and fever appeared at Ahascragh and Clifden, separate ends of the district, at the end of this year."[269]