and submission.”  Again, in the same letter:  “The effects of the Famine are discernible everywhere:  not a domestic animal to be seen—­pigs and poultry have quite disappeared.  The dogs have also vanished, except here and there the ghost of one, buried in the skeleton of one of those victims of cruelty and barbarity, which have been so numerous here within the last two months—­I allude to the horses and donkeys that were shot.  It is an alarming fact that, this day, in the town of Ennis, there was not a stone of breadstuff of any description to be had on any terms, nor a loaf of bread."[213]

In the chief cities, the pressure of the Famine, day by day, became greater.  In Belfast, the flourishing seat of the linen trade, one of the gentlemen appointed to visit the different districts, with the view of ascertaining the real amount of distress amongst the poor, writes in the following terms to the Northern Whig:  “There is not any necessity that I should point out individual cases of abject want, though in my visitations I have seen many of whose extreme destitution I could not possibly have formed a true estimate had I not seen them.  Let it suffice, however, to state, that in many of our back lanes and courts there are families in the veriest wretchedness, with scarcely enough of rags to cover their shivering emaciated bodies; they may be found huddled together around a handful of dying cinders, or endeavouring to fan into flame a small heap of damp smoking sawdust Perhaps when they have not been happy enough to procure even that scanty fuel, they will be found, to the number of five or six—­some well, some ill, and all bearing the aspect of pinching hunger—­endeavouring to procure warmth by crouching together upon a scanty heap of filthy straw, or mouldering wood shavings, their only covering an old worn-out rag of a blanket or a coverlet, that has been so patched and re-patched that its original texture or colour it would be impossible to discern.  On looking around this miserable dwelling, nothing meets the eye save the damp floor and the bare walls, down which the rain, or condensed vapour, is plentifully streaming.  Not a stool, chair, or seat of any description, in many instances, is to be seen, nor commonest utensil; and as for food, not so much as would satisfy the cravings of even a hungry infant.  Let not this picture be deemed overdrawn.  If any one suppose it exaggerated, had that individual been with me, on Sunday last, I could have shown him some instances of suffering, that would have removed all doubt regarding the reality of distress in Belfast.  I will merely mention one of them:—­“I entered a house to which my attention had been directed; in the kitchen there was not a single article of furniture—­not even a live cinder on the cold deserted-looking hearth.  In the inner room I found a woman, lately confined, lying upon a heap of chopped-up rotten straw, with scarcely a rag to cover her; beside her nestled two children, pictures of want, and in her bosom lay her undressed babe, that, four days before, had first seen the light.  She had no food in the house, nor had she, nor her children, had anything since her confinement, save a little soup procured from the public kitchen.  Such was her statement; and the evidence of her wretched dwelling bore but too ample testimony to her melancholy tale.”