Ypsilanti sentinel. [volume] (Ypsilanti, Washtenaw Co., Mich.) 1843-1900, 1847-03-10
TIE SENT MEL
CHARLES woopRtrr, EDITOR.
YpsILANTL WEDNESDAY NIGH 10 1874;

I Ii X.
YPsLANTI, WEDNESDAY NIGH 10 le47
Tue FAMINE IN IRBL.ND.-Thc Pittsbu rc
Gazette, states that gentleman fthat civ re-
ceived letters by the Cambria, fully confirming
TO the fullest extent, the published accounts of
the starvation of unhappy ireland. Whole fam
lies, he says, haze shut themselves up in hei,.
houses and hovels and starved to death!
According to the published estimates, there
are 100000 families over and above the or]ina-
ny laborers and farmers, now destitute in ireland
requiring at calculation Of ego per family
G50oo,O0O for their yearly maintenance.
The instances given, Of Individual suffering,
are beyond belief heart-renling. One would
think not another form of human misery could
de added to those at present existing. Men die
in their houses, and lie unbured for want of a
friendly hand able to perform the last rites of
sepulture mothers commit their children to
their miserable couches at night, giving them
their parting blessing, with the confident ex-
pectation that the next days sun will rise on
their lifeless remains: fathers in despair start
out to beg miserable pittance, and return no
more they have fallen dead by the roadside
and been deUoured by animals, or buried by
strangers.
Such facts as these are the appeals which
suffering Ireland sends to our more fortunate
land nor will they be UNDECIDED. Already or
CARNATIONS are formed in every city, and almost
every village, for the purpose ofsupplying the
starving Irish with portion of our abundance.
We trust this iberality will continue and in
crease; meanwhile we have word in season
to say to our farmers, ard we wish every press
in the land would repeatlt. The scarcity of
human food is not confined to Ireland were it
so. the abundant granaries of America would
scarcely feel the dmunition but many conn
tries OF the Continent are almost as badly off as
Ireland, and nearly all of them deficient. In
ternal duties are everywhere being suspended, s.
expectation prohibited-certain signs that the
world feels itself rapidly approaching that most
terrible of all calamities, famine. The proba-
bic inference is, that, by the time another har-
vest is taken from the earth, the present supply
will be entirely exhausted The failure of seed
in the districts where scarcity prevails, and the
absence of Iaborers in those depopuated by fa-
mine, will materially diminish the products of
those sections; What then if there should be a
general, or even partial failure elsewhere p
The distress of the present year will be swal-
1o,x ,,,d - 4bo+ f+l,>
Our own land may be visited by want and the
scenes of which we now hear, may be witness
ed among us. Inview of the possibility of such
an event, we trust our farmers will bestir them
selves. in putting in the greatest possible am'nt
Of land with Spring and Summer crops. They
should not hesitate to SOW or plant every spare
rood of land for if potatoes cannot be exported
they can be consumed here, leaving room for ex-
portation of the greater quantities of flour and
meal. the importance of the farmers vocation
was never more clearly seen than now, when
iialf the world is crying for bread.
uFWhat lesson the world may read in the
present crisis of its affairs A single obserya-
ton made by lettcr-writer, from Dublin, will
prompt a host of inquiries. Says he, the
bread carts, as they pass their rounds, are guar
ded by policemen" Thus it seems that such is
the furnishing condition of portion of the in
habitants of an opulent city, that force must he
employed to keep them from snatching by vio-
lence. the food necessary to preserve life.
Meantime these wretches may see abundance
all around them; the lofty buildings, the costly
architecture, the brilliant furniture and IuXuri-
Gus carriages of aristocratic wealth are visible
on every hand. What has produced all this
wealth? Labor. Whose labor The labor
of those very iamished wretches and their an
cestors. Whose is the property then1 Why,
the proprietors' who employed them. Bet how
comes it that notwithstanding all the immense
wealth they have created, they are now starving
and must be thrust away from the bread-carts
at the point of the bayonet? Has Labor ever
received that proportionate share of the wealth
it has created to which it is in justice entitled
If Soft labor is not worthy OF hire sufficient to
sustain the machine which performs it-what
wilt The world finally come to !! In fine, the
starvation of one class of society, and the SUI
perfuous abundance of the other, is proof posi-
tive that the former have been defrauded OF their
rightful dues to swell The wealth of the latter.
But we need not con6ne our attention to Ire
land. AT home the same Inequalities of s'divi-
dends between labor and Capital, exists, and
is rapidly working out the same results. The
fault is in the very groundwork of our social
system, which must in the course of century
at farthest be torn up and lain anew.