As to the complaint made by Colonel Jones about the preparation of the lists, there does not seem to be much in it.  Men of influence would naturally try to get their own people on the works in preference to others, but the efforts of such parties would be calculated to neutralize each other.  The balloting for the lists is explainable on very legitimate grounds.  Great as the extent of the Relief Works undoubtedly was, these works were lamentably short of the wants of the time.  Let us suppose that five hundred men in a district were, every one, urgent cases for the Relief Works, and let us suppose employment could not be given to them all, a very common occurrence indeed, what more natural—­what more just than to select by ballot those who were to be recommended?  It is hard to see what else could be done, unless the system of influence and favoritism against which Colonel Jones complained, were adopted.  The ballot, in short, would seem in many instances the only means of defeating that system.  It might be said that five hundred equally pressing cases could not be found in the same district.  Very true.  But what was unfortunately found in many districts was, twice—­thrice as many cases as there was employment for, the least urgent of which might be well pronounced very urgent.  Such, for instance, was the fact in the whole county of Mayo.

After Skibbereen, Bantry, and Skull, there was scarcely any place in the South so famine-stricken as Ennistymon.  The gentry of the place knew the real wants of the population, and pressed them on the Government officials; while they, on the other hand, in obedience to orders, felt bound to keep the labour lists as low as possible.  To have reduced those lists always served an inspector at head-quarters.  In such cases it is no wonder that unpleasant differences sometimes arose between Committees and inspectors.  That Ennistymon was sorely tried appears from many communications to the Board of Works.  A very short time after Captain Wynne’s unpleasant quarrel with the Committee there, I find Mr. Millet, the officer, I suppose, who succeeded him, writing to the Board from that town, that he was besieged in his house by men trying to compel him to put them on the works, on which account he could not get out until half-past four o’clock in the evening.  “Some of the men make a list,” he writes, “and get it sent by the Committee whether men are wanting or not.  The people think this is sufficient authority."[152] From this it seems clear that the works at Ennistymon were quite insufficient for the number of the destitute.  The starving people wanted to get employment, whether men were wanting or not.  What a complaint!  Good Mr. Millet, the question with the people was not whether you required workmen or not, but it was, that they and their families were in the throes of death from want of food, and they saw no other way of getting it but by being employed on those works.  Besides, your masters began by stating that the Public Works were not undertaken on account of their necessity or utility, but for the purpose of rescuing the people from famine, by giving them employment.[153]