The Sun.
London, England, 1824-02-14 00:00:00

THE POTATO.

I am now going to offer some remarks on what
is likely to be generally uppermost in the mind
of an Irishman, as affording subsistence, not only
to men, women, and children, but also to all
those live appendages, pigs, dogs, horses, cattle,
and poultry—the potato. If you should happen
to be disposed to conjectural anticipation, you
will perhaps think that I mean to propose, what
national gratitude ought to have done long since,
the erection of a statute to Sir Walter Raleigh
by whom the potato was first brought to this
country and presented to a Nobleman, right wor-
thy of being the dispenser of natural benefits,
Richard, the first Earl of Cork. But no, I have no
such intention. I question whether any important
advantage was in the contemplation of the donor ;
and moreover, I doubt whether the culture would
have been recommended by either of those great
men, had they been able to predict the future
and remote consequences of the gift. The great
Earl of Cork, (as he is commonly called), the
munificent founder of many towns, as well as of
an illustrious race, to whom the county of Cork
has never ceased to owe those obligations which
the rare union of virtue and ability so happily
enables their possessor to bestow, certainly con-
templated a different sort of subsistence than po.
tato diet for his numerous tenantry. Could his
Lordship have foreseen that they would be-
come almost the only food of the people; that
they would supplant the use of bread, abolish
the arts of culinary preparation, and, by
the extreme facility of providing a mere belly-
ful, promote idleness and vagabondism, and
multiply an evergrowing propagation of pau-
pers, he would, I will venture to affirm,
have been the very last man to advise or
encourage the culture of potatoes. But let me
not be considered as meaning to depreciate so
extraordinary and valuable a root. I only lament
the excessive use, or rather abuse, of one of the
most useful vegetable gifts which the bounteous
hand of the Almighty Creator has conferred upon
mankind. Used as they are in the Sister Island,
as an auxiliary to better food, their worth is in-
estimable ; but constituting, as they do here,
almost the sole food of the lower orders, the effect
is as I have stated ; and though the blame be not
attributed to the article itself, yet is not the con-
sequent wretchedness of its consumers the less
deplorable.—They are objectionable in another
ypearabsnupndpalynce of a for the current
intzheonsul
yr eesapre
;c ts,
oasthla) et
favoura-
ble season will constitute nothing to the relief of
a deficient. Hence the superfluity of subsistence
among a potato-fed people in any given year, is
but a superfluity of waste, which does not afford
the smallest security against a famine on the en-
suing year. Every other species of staple food
can be held over; and, therefore, for this as well
as other reasons, it should be one of the prime
objects of all those, whose ability and wishes to
promote the interests of the people go hand in
hand, to ameliorate their style of living, and ren-
der them somewhat less dependent upon the
fluctuating comforts of the potato system. The
last forty or fifty years, so fertile in great
events, claim also the credit, as far as it can be
so termed, of extending and generalising the use
of the potato. Previous to this period, that vo-
racious article of subsistence which in several
places, like Aaron's rod, has swallowed all the
rest, enjoyed but a limited share of popular pre-
ference. I can myself remember a time when
numerous little country mills were at work,
of which wily the vestiges now remain, and
when oaten bread was the general food of the
people in spring and summer. On days of
public work, such as sand-drawing and turf.
cutting, &c., when labourers were fed by their
employer, potatoes were never thought on, the
large table being plentifully furnished with fresh
milk and oaten cakes. It was, I think, the casual
introduction of the species called the apple potato,
remarkable for retaining its firmness and flavour
through the entire year, which first induced
the people, in an evil hour, to discontinue
the use of oaten bread. Laziness probably con-
tributed not a little to the substitution of a food
requiring only simple boiling, for a better and
stronger diet, attended with more labour of prepa-
ration. But the abridgment of labour which lazi-
ness procures, only serves to nurse the growth of
an evil habit. The time expended in that exer-
cise of culinary art, which gives additional nourish-
ment as well as variety to the homely meal, is far
from being lost, and may rather be considered
as supplying a stimulus to a useful exertion.—
Perhaps, indeed, the falling off may be in a great
measure ascribed to the evil system of middle-
landlorship, and land-jobbing, which then began
extensively to prevail, and by raising the rent of
land to an inordinate degree, left, I am afraid, in
too many places, to the laborious occupier, little
more than the bare potato. Of one thing there
can be no doubt, that the farmers then lived
much better than they do now. Inhabitants were
comparatively few, and consequently farms, of
which the rents were very low, comparatively
large. To the extraordinary rapid increase
of population, may certainly be ascribed a
large portion of that pauperism to which other
causes were also contributory.—(Muckwood's
Magazine.)

The rope-spinners in this town have lately re-
ceived several foreign orders, and they are at
present thronger and in better spirits than they
have been at any time since the termination of
the war. At a meeting of the journeymen, held
last night, it was resolved to intimate to the mas-
ters their determination to have their wages ad-
vanced from 15s. to 18s. a week.—(Glasgow
Chronicle.)

DREADFUL ACCT DENT.—Yesterday afternoon
an Inquest was held at the Three Compasses, New-cut, Lam-
beth, before Mr. J>rarMETT, Coroner for Surrey, on the body
of Mrs. Catharine Davis, wife of Mr. Davis, landlord of the
Spanish Patriot Public-house, in the New-cut.—lt appeared
froth the evidence that she was burned to death in consequence
of her clothes catching tire.—The Jury proceeded to view the
body, which presented a most horrid spectacle, there being
scarcely any part of it but what was so burned as to bear the
appearance of scorched parchment.—The Jury returned a ver-
dict—" That the deceased came to her death by being acci-
dentally burnt."