THEIR HEIGHT, FORM, AND STRENGTH. 73 



of the State of Ireland (p. 30), has, with a mass of 

 calumnies, this admission : " Their food is potatoes 

 or oaten cake, sour milk, and sometimes salted fish. 

 The children are generally half, and sometimes alto- 

 gether, naked ; yet, from this nakedness, they grow 

 up to that strength and stature for which they are 

 admirable." 



63. In 1808, Sir John Carr, in The Stranger in 

 Ireland, pp. 249, 410: "The handsomest peasants 

 are those of Kilkenny and its neighbourhood ; the 

 most wretched and squalid, those of Cork and Water- 

 ford, of Munster and Connacht. In Roscouimon they 

 are handsome, and the men are fair and tall ; in 

 Meath they are heavily-limbed ; in Kerry, very much 

 like the Spaniards. I saw a review of the military 

 quartered in and near Cork, and never beheld finer 

 men. An English officer of rank and family informed 

 me (what candour induces me not to suppress) that, 

 on a march, the native troops of Ireland have 

 frequently preceded the English by one mile in 

 four miles." 



64. In 1808 Hutfcon published his Statistical 

 Survey of the County of Clare for the Royal Dublin 

 Society. At p. 1 68 he says : " Let those ignorant 

 cavillers, who say that potatoes and milk is not 

 nourishing food, look at the children, generally in 

 rags, but with every appearance and reality of rv.ddy 



