they thought that nobody but negroes ate it—yet negroes lived on that food; and "sure the Americans wouldn't hurt em."
These recipes were prepared in due form, and made up with suets, fats, sweets, and spices, so that the Laird John Russell himself could "ate em." A great and grand meeting of lords and nobility was held, called by the poor, the "yaller Indin maitin;" and a bona fide sanction put on to the Indian meal cake. Here again was a difficulty—the meal was for the hungry; Where could they procure spices, sweets, and fats for such delicacies?—and as they thought that these were necessary to make it safe to eat, then their fears were awakened anew. But a few weeks adjusted all these difficulties, for when the number of the slain had increased in every parish, all murmuring at the quality of the food ceased—they suffered in uncomplaining silence.
It was on the evening of December 7th, when about stepping into the train, at Kingstown, for Dublin, I heard a policeman relating to a bystander a case of famine at the south. The potato, I knew, was partly destroyed; but never thought that actual famine would be the result. The facts were so appalling, that had they not come from a policeman, who, it should be said, are in general men of veracity, my mind would have doubted; and when he added that "I got this information from a friend who was present in the court, and who wrote the circumstances to me," all queries were removed.
2*
