180 ON THE STATE OF IRELAND. [BOOK II. 



Fever occurs chiefly among the very poorer classes, 

 from the causes already enumerated by one of the wit- 

 nesses. They have no attendance but from their own 

 family; no means of procuring medicine or other food 

 than potatoes, except what is derived, in common with 

 other cases of distress, from an occasional collection at the 

 Roman Catholic chapel, some casual assistance from the 

 church collection, from the clergymen privately, or the 

 very few gentry that reside. But those resources, from 

 the numerous demands made on them, are inadequate to 

 afford any very perceptible relief, and the consequence 

 is that the above cases may stand as a general description 

 of their condition. 



One witness added, that there are other cases, of com- 

 mon occurrence, worse if possible ; they are those of 

 strange families, beggars, who have no houses in the pa- 

 rish ; a hut is erected for them by the way-side. Those 

 that are for the time in health attend on the sick, and 

 take in whatever is left outside by neighbours charitably 

 disposed. This witness has known families, as they sink 

 one after another under the disease, unable to leave such a 

 hut for four months ; and has himself known, he thinks, 

 two cases of persons dying by the road-side, unsheltered, 

 before such a hut could be erected for them. 



Province of Munster, county of Cork ; examinations taken by T. Martin, 

 Esq., and J. Lalor, Esq. ; parish of St. Mary's, city of Cork. Nine 

 witnesses. 



There is a society in the parish called ' ( The Sick Poor 

 Society/' The funds are raised by a subscription of a penny 



