Most of his stories were very improper, but their wit excused them.

In the Kildare Street Club one day he saw a very pompous individual, and asked who he was.

’That’s So-and-So, and the odd thing is he is the youngest of four brothers, who are all married without having a child between them.’

‘Ah, that accounts for his importance—­he is the last of the Barons.’

Finding him very meditative in the County Club at Cork one Friday, I asked him what was the matter.

‘I am making my soul,’ said he.  ’I began my dinner with turbot and ended with scollops.’

CHAPTER VI

FAMINE AND FEVER

It is now necessary to revert to that terrible page of Irish history, the famine, which culminated in what is still known as ’the black forty-seven.’

I have often been asked, ’How is it that Ireland could formerly support a population of eight millions as compared with only five now?’

The answer is simple:  Eight millions could still exist if the potato crop were a certainty, and if the people were now content to exist as they did then.  But to the then existing population—­living at best in a light-hearted and hopeful, hand-to-mouth contentment—­there was a terrible awakening.

The mysterious blight, which had affected the potato in America in 1844, had not been felt in Ireland, where the harvest for 1845 promised to be singularly abundant.  Suddenly, almost without warning, the later crop shrivelled and wasted.

The poor had a terribly hard winter, and the farmers borrowed heavily to have means to till a larger amount of land in 1846.

Once more the early prospects were admirable, and then in a single night whole districts were blighted.

This is how Mr. Steuart Trench described the catastrophe:—­

’On August 1, 1846, I was startled by a sudden and strange rumour that all the potato fields in the district were blighted, and that a stench had arisen emanating from their decaying stalk.  The report was true, the stalks being withered; and a new, strange stench was to be noticed which became a well-known feature in ‘the blight’ for years after.  On being dug up it was found that the potato was rapidly blackening and melting away.  The stench generally was the first indication, the withered leaf following in a day or two.’

The terrible sufferings which ensued were complicated by some blunders of British statesmen.

In 1845 Sir Robert Peel was Prime Minister.  He imported Indian meal, and established depots in the country, where it was sold to the people at the lowest possible price, thus putting a complete check on private enterprise.

In 1846 Lord John Russell was Premier.  He declined to follow the example of Sir Robert Peel, because he considered that it interfered with Free Trade, and, reversing the policy of his predecessor, announced that he left the importation of meal to private enterprise.