They were popular, with a vengeance—for every little street arab had beef bones for castanets, and every new song was roared out in the streets until it nauseated. Punch drew
policemen and dustmen as Ethiopian Serenaders, and even suggested that Lablache, Mario and Tamburini should adopt the style.
The Queen opened Parliament on 19 Jan., and in her speech, whilst deprecating “the very frequent instances in which the crime of deliberate assassination has been, of late, committed in Ireland,” she went on: “I have to lament that, in consequence of a failure of the potato crop in several parts of the United Kingdom, there will be a deficient supply of an article of food which forms the chief subsistence of great numbers of my people. The disease by which the plant has been affected, has prevailed to the utmost extent in Ireland. I have adopted all such precautions as it was in my power to adopt, for the purpose of alleviating the sufferings which may be caused by this calamity; and I shall confidently rely on your co-operation in devising such other means for effecting the same benevolent purpose, as may require the sanction of the Legislature.”
On 13 March, Parliament talked somewhat about the matter, and Sir James Graham, the Home Secretary, confessed that distress “pervades the whole of Ireland. It is to be found in every province, in every county, in every union; nay, almost in every parish in Ireland. The course Her Majesty’s
Government has taken, has been this. We have, in particular parts of Ireland, established depôts, where food can be bought at an easy price, at the very lowest price, and, thinking that eleemosynary relief ought to be avoided as much as possible, we propose to afford, to the utmost possible extent, either by means of public works to be undertaken, or by works already established, the means by which the people may be enabled to earn wages, and so to purchase food at the moderate cost at which it will be supplied.”
But, in spite of all the Government could do, with the very best intentions, gaunt famine was stalking through the land, and the hungry folk could not be quiet, with the sight of food before them. They were not going to starve when they saw the bakers’ shops full of bread, and the butchers’, of meat. Human nature and a hungry belly could not stand it—so we can scarcely wonder at the famine riots which ensued. The shops were wrecked, the food was taken; they even laid their hands on a boat proceeding from Limerick to Clare with relief, and plundered it of its cargo of corn and maize flour. But, alas! this was only the commencement of the sad story.
There was an alternative, open to those who had the money—to emigrate—and this they did—see the following, from the Cork Reporter, copied into the Times of 18 April: “For the last fortnight our quays have been daily thronged with the fine and stalwart peasantry of this and the adjoining counties, preparing to emigrate to various parts of the trans-Atlantic world. Perhaps, upon no former occasion, even before the hope of railway employment was held out to the people, and when “Government grants” for their relief were never heard of, did the number of emigrants from this quarter exceed the proportion of this present year. Besides the various large and full-freighted vessels, which have left the quays of Cork, direct for America, several ships were despatched to the west of the county, and had no difficulty in obtaining their full complement of passengers. Two large ships went round to Berehaven, a few days ago, and have, since, left the shores of that bleak district, with over 200 passengers.
Several other vessels have proceeded, or are about to proceed, for Baltimore and Berehaven, localities in which the destitution of the present year has been severely felt. Three hundred persons have been ready, for the last fortnight, to embark from Dingle; but, not being able to get a ship to visit them, sufficiently commodious for their accommodation, have been obliged to make the best of their way to Cork. Several vessels, now lying at Passage, will sail this day, these taking five hundred and fifty passengers . . . At a moderate computation, about 9,000 emigrants have, or, within the next month, will have, left this port for America. It is to be hoped their anticipations will be realised. There can be little fear, however, that their condition could be worse, or their prospects more disheartening than those which the ‘potato famine’ in this country, little mended by the promise of Indian corn, had occasioned. La faim chasse le loup hors du bois. To starve, or emigrate, are the only alternatives of the people.”
The Waterford Chronicle thus comments: “There will have gone, after the season is over, upwards of 3,000 people, from this country, by this port alone. Not to talk of the rearing of these people—the trouble and expense of bringing up a healthy man, woman, or child, and, especially, leaving out the irreparable loss to society, in this country, of their affections, hopes, and family ties—all, now, sundered and destroyed—not to talk of the countless living deaths of wholesale emigration from a feeling and warm-hearted mother country—the amount of capital taken by these 3,000 is immense. Assuming that each individual spends £10 in his passage, and before he settles, and that he has £10 more to establish himself, here is direct taking away, in hard cash, of £60,000 gone out of the bleeding pores of Ireland, to increase the misery which is left behind. We are in possession of facts which show that many cunning landlords are sending away their people yearly, but by degrees, and not in such a manner as to subject themselves to a ‘clearance notice.’ If this system be continued, we shall be tempted to give names. After these things, who will blame the people for outbreaks