In compliance with this order, a purchase of five hundred salms, or quarters, of Indian corn was at once made, and the mills were set to work; but there were not such stocks of grain in Malta as reported at first, and once again the Secretary of the Treasury expresses his suspicions that the French had been making food purchases in the Mediterranean.[172]

To enable the people to be, to some extent, independent of mill-power, it occurred to the authorities to revive the use of the old Irish hand-mill, or quern.  This very ancient and rude contrivance had been employed in many countries as well as our own; nor had it as yet fallen into complete desuetude in parts of Scotland and the Shetland Islands.  Mr. Trevelyan had seen it with the army in India, and he hoped by getting samples of various kinds of quern, to have one constructed that would be of considerable importance in the present crisis, especially in very out-of-the-way districts.  In September, Lord Monteagle, who showed much practical good sense and kindheartedness throughout the famine, called the attention of the Treasury to this matter, and requested that some steel mills and querns should be placed at the disposal of the Commissariat officer on duty in his district; for, said he, the markets are rising, and the people, by buying corn and grinding it for themselves, will have food cheaper than if they bought meal; and moreover they can thus occupy old people for whom no other employment can be found.  The quern, adds his lordship (alluding to Matt. c. 24, v. 41) is literally the Scripture mill—­“two women shall be grinding at the mill,” etc.  As to the steel mills, such as those used for grinding coffee, they were considered too expensive to be brought into use; mills of this description, specially tempered to grind Indian corn, not being purchasable even in quantity at a less cost than from four to five pounds each.  Curiously enough, the Treasury could not obtain specimens of the Scotch or Irish quern, so they procured an Indian one, from the museum of the India House.  They also got a French hand-mill, which was considered superior at least to the Indian one.  The attempt to revive the use of the quern had no success except in a single instance.  Captain Mann, the officer in charge at Kilkee, induced a coast-guard there to take to quern making.  This man turned out querns at from ten to twelve shillings each, and got a ready sale for them; Mr. Trevelyan recommended them to all, but it would seem their sale was confined to the locality.

The Irish mill-power given above was considerable for the extent of the district, but as the machinery was worked exclusively by water, the mills, of course, were idle when the water supply failed.  Towards the end of September the mills in and about Westport could not, on this account, execute the orders of the corn merchants, to say nothing of the Government business.  Captain Perceval, who had charge of the district, under the Relief Commissariat Department,