Connecticut western news., 1880-03-10
The Distress in Ireland.
sTATH OF AFFAIRS IN COUNTY MAYO TEREsTINa LETTER FROM LADY TO THR HERALD. =s s


 sTATH OF AFFAIRS IN COUNTY MAYo-IN } TEREsTING LETTER FROM LADY Tt THE HERALD. l A lady writes to the Herald from tn Manse, Hollymount, county Mayo, the following graphic account of the dis tress existing in the neighborhoot where she resides:
 About the famine, our county is on,
 of the chief centres of distress. We art
 in the midst of it, and my heart is wrune
 with scenes of distress and sufferine
 that l am often unable even partially to
 relieve. If you ask for the true cause
 would answer, an unusually wet seasor
 and failure of crops, especially the
 potato and other green crops, such as
 turnips and cabbages, upon which the
 greater portion of the Irish laborine
 class subsists. Wheat also was ar
 almost entire failure, and also, owing to
 the constant rains, the peat, which ie
 the only fuel of the majority of the
 Irish people, was scarcely dried at all,
 and consequently will hardly make a
 fire. Add to this the almost entire want
 of employment in the winter in the
 West of Ireland generally. The great majority of the people are laborers, living at the best of times upon their daily wages, never able to lay by anything, and, consequently, they have nothing to fall back upon in times of trouble. There are, in this village, families where there is not one member in employment; these must necessarily starve or be supported by charity. Other families have one or two members working; for instance, one family that visited about an hour ago-there are ten in the family-the father and oldest son earn together two shillings day. fifty cents of your money. This amounts to $3 in the week, and that must SUD- port three grown people-father, mother, an old aunt and seven children the oldest of which is not more tn an fourteen years of age. They get an order once month from their employer on local shopkeeper for Indian meal L. coarse, half-broken meal, which VI ou would hardly think good enough for feeding pigs. (We get no fine me pal here.) This order often exceeds the amount of their earnings, and in this case must be made up in the next month. There is never suficien mt quantity of food to last till next D pay day, and consequently they must depend upon their neighbors to eke out miserable subsistence till the order is |, again given. To-day they sent to me for potatoes and I sent down a small pailful. went down a while ago and found that that family of ten had had no food during the day but those potatoes, and yesterday had only had few boiled turnips, with little Indian meal shaken over them. This is only a specimen of numbers of families in this district.
 Others are even worse of, all being idle, there being no work to be got. Application has been made by one local committee for share of the Duchess of Marlborough's fund, and we are prom ised supply of Indian meal next week but at the best there will be a great l many sufferers whose cases can only be l met by private iberality. The com- nittee, for fear of exhausting the first grant (g2O, will not allow any family to get any relief where there is even one member working and in receipt of wages. This my husband has strenuously op- posed, but it was carried against him. think the very small farmers, holding rom two to six acres, are perhaps even worse off than those who live in our 7iNages. Their crops have all failed md they have rents and taxes to meet. md at the best of times are sorely pressed. For the last year and half, ,r nearly two years, the markets for 'attle and sheep have been so depressed hat the prices obtained scarcely paid or their keep. All farmers, large and mall have suffered severely in this way, many having lost hundreds of pounds n the last year alone. The remedy mould be first employment labor t wages sufficient to support not only he worker but those who may be de- ,endent on him and charity in consid- 'ration of the several cases presented. have in many cases been ustly incensed by the anti-rent agita- ion. Many parties who through dem- Igogues have been led to repudiate all ust debts, even though they were per ectly able to pay their rents, have made he exceptionally bad year an excuse for party agitation and treason. Even shop lebts are also repudiated, 50 far has the nisrule gone, and this not only by the ,ery poor but often by those who have means at command.