As the year 1846 wore on to its close, the Famine deepened in intensity, and every day extended itself more and more.  The cold, which was very severe in December, became its powerful auxiliary.  Wherever the blame is to rest—­at head-quarters in Dublin, or with the clerks at the works—­the irregularity with which wages were paid by the representatives of the Government, caused terrible suffering and innumerable deaths.  Many of those recorded at this period occurred from the taking of food by persons who had been without it for a long time.  “Carthy swallowed a little warm milk and died,” is the simple announcement of one man’s death from starvation; but, with slight variations, it might be given as the record of thousands of deaths as well as Carthy’s.

The means of providing coffins for the victims of famine was becoming a serious question, as the survivors in many a poor family could not now attempt to purchase them, as the outlay of a small sum for a coffin might be the cause of further deaths from starvation in the same family.  At a meeting in Skibbereen, in the beginning of December, Dr. Donovan said that, since his return from Glandore that morning, he had been followed by a crowd of applicants, seeking coffins for their deceased friends; and he had, he said, just visited a house in the Windmill,[187] where he saw two dead bodies lying, awaiting some means of burial.  His opinion was, that they were on the eve of a pestilence that would reach every class.  “And,” said a gentleman, interrupting, “when I asked a presentment for coffins at the sessions, I was laughed at.”  Dr. Donovan continued:  The case of a man named Sullivan was a most melancholy one.  His children began to drop off without any apparent disease, after they had entered the Workhouse.  From scarcity of beds, the father and son—­the latter being sick and weakly—­had to sleep together; and one morning the son was found dead alongside of his father, while another child died in the mother’s arms next day.  He (Dr. Donovan) had asked Sullivan why he did not tell him his children were sick.  His answer was, “They had no complaint.”  Mr. D. M’Carthy said it would be for the meeting to consider whether they should not pronounce their strong condemnation upon the conduct of an official in the town, who, with starvation staring them in the face, would not give out a pound of food except at famine price, though he had stores crammed with it.  “He’d give you,” said Mr. Downing, “for L17 a-ton what cost our paternal Government L7 10s.”

Dr. Donovan, writing to one of the provincial journals at this time, says:  “Want and misery are in every face; and the labourers returning from the relief works look like men walking in a funeral procession, so slow is their step and so dejected their appearance.”