Page:Annalsoffaminein00nich.djvu/184

178 good flour or meal; and if meddlesome people had staid at home, minding their own concerns, who would ever have thought of complaining about bread? The poor starving ones had reached that point that they would swallow anything in the shape of food that could have been swallowed, without uttering a murmur.

A few pieces of this bread were put in a letter, directed to a friend in London, that the Committee there, acting for the poor in Ireland, might have a sight. The letter was carried to the postmaster, and an explanation given him of the precious gift contained in it, and the object of so doing, &c.; that it was to let the people of England see if they acknowledged this article as a provision of theirs for the poor. The letter never reached its destination; the postmaster was interrogated by the writer; he affirmed that he had seen no such letter, nor heard one word about it; when lo! this forgetful postmaster was one of the said relief officers who managed the black bread! "Whoso readeth let him understand."

Whether the poor lived or whether they died on this bread, or by this bread, I do not pretend to say, only that death was doing its work by hunger, fever, and dysentery continually.