[94] The Irish Crisis, by Sir Charles E. Trevelyan.
[95] This observation was, in all probability, levelled at the Dublin Evening Mail; a newspaper which Sir Lucius would be sure to read, being one of the organs of his party, and which had, sometime before, with a heartless attempt at humour, called the blight "the potato mirage."
[96] The Freeman's Journal.
[97] Ibid. This correspondent tells an anecdote of a peasant whose heroic generosity contrasts strongly with the conduct of the above noble proprietors. He (the correspondent) stood by a pit of potatoes whilst the owner, a small farmer, was turning them for the purpose of picking out and rejecting the bad ones. The man informed him it was the fourth picking within a fortnight. At the first picking, he said the pit contained about sixty barrels, but they were now reduced to about ten. Whilst this conversation was going on, a beggar came up and asked an alms for God's sake. The farmer told his wife to give the poor woman some of the potatoes, adding—"Mary, give her no bad ones, God is good, and I may get work to support us."
"I am warranted in saying," he concludes, "that by the 10th of May there will not be a single potato for twenty miles around Clonmel."
[98] There were twenty principal Government Food Depots established in various parts of Ireland in 1846, at which the following quantities were issued:—
| Tons. | cwts. | qrs. | lbs. | |
| Indian Corn | 30 | 00 | 00 | 00 |
| Indian Corn Meal | 11,593 | 11 | 00 | 19 |
| Oat Meal | 528 | 00 | 3 | 24 |
| Biscuit | 6 | 3 | 00 | 7 |
| ----- | -- | -- | -- | |
| Total | 12,157 | 15 | 0 | 22 |
R.J. ROUTH, Commissary General.
—Famine Reports. Commissariat Series. Vol. 1, p. 2.
The number of Relief Committees in this, the first year of famine, was 600. In 1847, they numbered nearly 2,000.