178 ON THE STATE OF IRELAND. [BOOK II. 



other bed than straw or rushes. Since harvest we have 

 had plenty of straw ; but when it was scarce, in summer, 

 we had no bed but the rushes we cut in the fields, and 

 often lay on them the same day we cut them. Though 

 I asked it, I could get no credit for any article I wanted, 

 nor for money. The people of my own village had it not 

 to give me ; they were too poor themselves. We have had 

 enough of potatoes since harvest ; but during the summer 

 we lived on half-diet." 



When we asked him, say the Commissioners, how he 

 procured the half-diet on which his family lived, he was evi- 

 dently reluctant to tell ; but one of his neighbours, who was 

 present, exclaimed : " Tell the truth : how decent he is ! why 

 should you be ashamed to tell how they lived? His wife sup- 

 ported those six she begged for the rest of them." 



Many present were acquainted with the particulars of 

 this case, as stated. This same man's family was attacked 

 by fever three years ago, when it went the round of them 

 all in the same manner, and carried off three. 



A clergyman remarked that fever is common in this 

 parish, caused by the scarcity and unwholesomeness of 

 food, insufficiency of clothing, and, in many instances, the 

 total want of night-covering ; it is therefore most common 

 where poverty is greatest and the family largest. 



Another witness said, the cabins are generally such that 

 one could not sit in one of them during a shower ; and he 

 knows numberless instances of families, unable to procure 

 straw, cutting rushes for beds ; and, still more, who, for 

 want of bed-clothes, lie in the clothes they wear by day. 



Another witness said, that, independent of rain from the 

 roof, the cabins cannot but be damp, from their situation ; 

 as the most valueless, that is, swampy piece of land is al- 



