Page:Annalsoffaminein00nich.djvu/189

Rh hundred, mostly women, spinning and hand-skutching, and their earnings were three shillings and three shillings and sixpence per week. The yarn was spun by hand, and the weaving by a spring shuttle. The table-linen and sheeting would compete with any manufactory in any country. Yet this valuable establishment was doing its last work for want of encouragement—want of funds; and machinery is doing the work faster and selling cheaper, though the material is not so durable. What can the poor laborer do; willing to work at any price, and begging to do so, yet cannot be allowed the privilege. Mr. Gildea kept a number employed, and employed to a good purpose, many of whom may at last starve for food.

The state of the famine here might be illustrated by a few facts which came under my observation. The chapel bell tolled one morning early, when a respectable young woman was brought into the yard for interment. No bells tolled for the starving, they must have the "burial of an ass," or none at all. A young lad improved this opportunity while the gate was open, and carried in a large sack on his back, which contained two brothers, one seventeen, the other a little boy, who had died by starvation. In one corner he dug, with his own emaciated feeble hands, a grave, and put them in, uncoffined, and covered them, While the clods were falling upon the coffin of the respectable young woman. I never witnessed a more stirring striking contrast between civilized and savage life—Christianity and heathenism—wealth and poverty, than in this instance; it