64 THE IRISH PEOPLE. 



Mr. Wilson King, United States' Consul at Birming- 

 ham, in a recent paper, in which he maintains that 

 the Irish had more to do with the making of the 

 United States than even the English. 



51. In 1780, Arthur Young says : "The Spanish* 

 race of Kerry, of part of Cork and Limerick, are 

 tall, thin, well-made. The food of the common Irish 

 is potatoes and milk ; it is said not to be sufficiently 

 nourishing for the support of hard labour ; but this 

 opinion is very amazing in a country, many of 

 whose poor people are as athletic in their form, as 

 robust, and as capable of enduring labour as any 

 upon earth. When I see the people of a country, in 

 spite of political oppression, with well-formed, vig- 

 orous bodies, and their cottages swarming with 

 children ; when I see their men athletic, and their 

 women beautiful, I know not how to believe them 

 subsisting on unwholesome food. ... I have 

 known the Irish reapers in Hertfordshire work as 

 laboriously as -any of our own men, and living on 

 potatoes, which they procured from London, but 

 drinking nothing but ale. Our own service, both by 

 sea and land, as well as that (unfortunately for us) 

 of the principal monarchies of Europe, speaks of 

 their steady and determined courage. Every un- 



* The opinion of Young and other Englishmen, that the 

 people of Kerry, Cork, Limerick, and Galway are of Spanish 

 descent, has no foundation. E. H. 



