A Week In Ireland

Skibbercen, Feb. 22. Dr. Hadden called to take me nto Castleliaven parish, wliich comes witliin his circuit. Tliis district borders upon the sea, whose rockv indented shores, are covered wilh cabins of a worse description than those at Skibbereen. On our way we passed severa] compnnies of men, women, andchildren at work, all enfeebled and emaciated by destituiion. Women, with their red, swollen feet, partially svvalhed in old rags, some in men's coats, with the arms or skirts torn off, vere sitting by the roadside breaking tones. It wns painful lo see humar, abor and life struggling among the lowest interests of society. Men, once athleüc laborers, were trying lo eke out a few miserable days lo their existence by toiüng upon those works. l'oor creatures! Many oftliem are alreadyfamne-stricken: they have reached a point from which they cannot be recovered. - Dr. Donovan informs me that he can teil at aglance whether a person has ieached this point or not. And I am assured by several experienced observers tliat there are thousands of men who rise in the morning and go forth to labor with their picks and shovels in ibeir hands, who are irrecoverably doomed to death. No human aid can save them. The plague spot of famine is on their fore heads; the worm of want has eaten into tlicir hoart-strings. Still tliey go forth uncornplaining to tílfíe tbor; and toi!, cold, famished, and half naked, upon the roads; nnd divide their eiglit or ten pence worth of food at night among a sick family of five or eiglit persons. Some are kept at home, and prevented from earningthis miserly pittance, by the foar, that some of their faimly may die beforo they return. The first habitntion we entered in the Castlehaven district, was literally a hole in the wall, occupied by what might be called, in America, a squatter, or a man who had burrowed a place for himself and family in the acute ongle of twodilnpidated walls by tlie roadside, wliere hc lived rent free. VVe entered tliis stinted den by an aperture about three feet high, and found one or two children lying asleep, with their eyes open, in the straw. Such, at least, was their appenranco; for they scarcely winked while we were before them. The fuiher carne in, and told us a pitiful story of want, snying that not a morsel of food had they tasted for twenty-four hours. He lighted a wisp of straw, and showed us one or two more children lying in another nook of the cave. Their mother had died; and bewas obliged to leave them alone during most of the day, in order to glcan sometning for their subsistence. VVe were soon among the most wretched habitations that I had yet seen, far worse than those in Skibbereen. Many of thern were flaroofed hovols, half buried in the earth,or built up against the rocks, and covered with rotten straw, sea weed, or turf. In one which was scarcely scven feet square, we fouud five persons p rost rat e with the fever, and apparentiy near their end. A girl about sixteen the very picture of despair, was the only one left who could administer any relief; and all she could do was to bring water in a broken pitcher to slake their parched ips. As we proceeded up the rocky hill overlooking the scène, we encountered new sights of wretchedness. Seeing a cabin standing somewhat by ilself in a hollow, and surrounded by a moa', of green filth, we entered it with some diflïculty, and found a single child about three years old lying upon a kind of shelf, with its little face resting upon the edge of the board, and looking steadfastly out at the door ns if for its mother. It never moved ils eyes as we entered, but kept them fi.xed toward the enirance. It isdoubtful whether the poor thing had a mother or father left lo her; but it is more doubtful still whether ihose eyes would have rekpsed their vacant gaze, if both of them had entered at once, with everything that could tempt the palate in their hands. - No words can describe this peculiar apperance of the famished children. Never hvve I seen such bright, blue, clear eyes, looking so stedfastly at nothing. I could almost fancy tliat Angels of God had been sent to unsoal the visión of these little, patiënt, perishing creatcires to the beatitudes of another world; and tliat they were listening to the uhispers of unseen spirits bidding them to "wait a liltle longer." Leaving this we entered nnother cnbin, in which we found seven or eight attenuated young crealures, witl) n mother wlio had pawned her cloak, and could not venture out to beg for bread because she was not fit to be seen in the streels. Hearing ihe voice of wailing froni a cluster of huts further up the hill, we pvoceeded to them, and entered one, and found several persons weeping over the dead body of a wornan lying by the wall near the door. Stretched upon the groiind here and there lay severa] sick persons; and the place seemed a den of pestilence. The filthy straw was rank with the festering fever. Leaving this habitation of deatb, we were met by a young woman in an agony of despair, because no one wou ld give her a coffin to bury her father in. She pointed to a cart at some distance, upon which his body lay; ar.d she was about to follow it tothe grave; and he wassuch a good father she could not bear to lay hitnlike a beast in the ground, and she begged a coffin "for the honor of God." VV'hile she was wailing and weaping for this aoon, I cast my eye towaids the cabin we had lefi; nnd nsightmet my view which made me shudder with horror. - The husband ofilie dead woman cnme stnggering out, with her body upon his shoulders, slighlly covered with a piece of rotten canvass. I wil] not dweil upon the details of this spectacle. Painfully and slowly he bore the remains of the ate companion of his misery tu the cart. We followed him a little waj off,and saw lim deposit his burden along-side of the 'ather of the young woman, nnd by her nssistance. As the two started for the graveynrd tobury their own dend,wepursuedour walk still furiher on, and entered another cabin, where we encountered the climax of human misery. Surely, tho't I, while regarding this new phenomenon of sufTcring, thers ren lic dep tlian this, befween u ol the grave. On nsking after tlie condition of the inmales, the woman, to whom we addressed the question, nnsweivd by taking out of llie straw ihree breathing skcletons, ranging f rom two to three feet in height, and enlirely nakcd: and these human things we re a'ivc.' If they liad been dead, they could not have been such frightful spectacles They were alive; and, wonderful to sny, they could stand upon their feet, and even walk ; but it was awful tu sec them do it. Had tlieir hones been divested of the skin thnt held Ihem togelher, and been covered with a veil ofthin rnuslin,they would not hnve been more visible. Espeuially when one of them clung tothe door while a sister was urging it forwani, it assumed an appearance which can have heen seldom pnralleled this side of the grave. - The effort which it made tocling to the door disclosed every joint in its frame, whi.'e the deepest lines of oíd age furrowed its face. The enduring of ninety years of sorrow scemod to chronicle its record of woa upon llie poor child's countenance. I could bear no more; and we returned to Skibbereen, after haring been all the atlernoon atnongtho.se abodesof misery. On our way we overtook the cart with the two uncoffined bodies. The man and young woman were all that attended them to the grave. Lnst year, the funeral of either would have called out hundreds of mourners from those hills: but now the husband drovehis uncoffined wife to the grave without a tear in his eye, without a word cf sorrow. About half way to Skihbereen Dr. Hadden proposed that we should diverge to another road lo visit a cabin in which we should find two litlle girls living alone, with their dead mother, who had lain unburied seven days. He gave an affecting history of this poor woman; and we turned from the road to visit this new scene of desolation; but as it was growing quite dark, and the distancc was considerable, we concluded to resume our way back to the villago. In fact I had wilnessed as much as my heart could bear. In the evoning I met several gentlemen at the house of Mr. Swanton, among whom was Dr. Donovnn. He had just returned from a neighboring parish,where he visited a cabin whieli had been deserted by the poor peo)le around, although it was known thnt sotne of its inmates were still alivp, though dying in the midst oí the dead. He knocked at the door; and, hearing no Toice within, burst it open with liis foot ; and was, in a momen; almost overpowered by the horrid stench . Seeing a man's legs protruding from the straw, he moved them slightly with his foot, when a husky voice asked for ter. In nnother part cf tlie cabin, on removing a piece of canvass, he discovered ihree dead bodies, which hnd lain there unburied for afortnight; and hard againstone of these, and almost embraced in the arms of death, lay n young person far gone with the fever. Her elated other cases too horrible to be published.