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140 put a board on 'em." We have often seen an ass passing our window carrying a corpse, wound about with some old remnant of a blanket or sheet; and thus, flung across its back, a father or mother, wife or husband, was carried to the grave. Sometimes, when the corpse was a little child, or it might be more than one, they were put into a couple of baskets, and thus balanced upon the sides of the ass, this melancholy hearse proceeded on without a friend to follow it, but the one who was guiding the beast. These burials tell more of the paralysing effects of famine than anything else can do ; for the Irish in all ages, have been celebrated for their attention to the interment of their dead, sparing no expense.

When I stood in the burying-ground in that parish, I saw the brown silken hair of a young girl, waving gently through a little cleft of stones, that lay loosely upon her young breast. They had not room to put her beneath the surface, but slightly, and a little green grass was pulled and spread over, and then covered with stones. I never shall forget it.

In some parts the soil was manured with the slain. When the famine first commenced, efforts were made to procure coffins; but the distress became so great to the living, that every penny that could be procured must be given for food; and the famished relatives, at last, were grateful if some hand stronger