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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



of the winter added its hardships to the 

 horrors of famine. The civilian popula- 

 tion was reduced to the most desperate 

 straits. Dogs, cats, and rats were sold 

 for food at extravagant prices and they 

 were deemed rare luxuries by the starv- 

 ing. When the garrison finally capitu- 

 lated and the Germans marched down 

 the Champs Elysees, on March i, many 

 foreign nations joined in spirited rivalry 

 to revictual the stricken city, but it was 

 many weeks before the distress of the 

 people could be relieved. 



Ireland's many famine; woes 



Ireland has been a land of many woes, 

 and not the least of these have been the 

 famines which from time to time have 

 taken such heavy toll of the island's man- 

 hood. As early as 963-964, an intolerable 

 famine visited the country, and parents 

 are said to have sold their children in 

 order to get money with which to buy 

 food. On at least three occasions the 

 peasantry has been driven to cannibal- 

 ism. The most notorious instance oc- 

 curred during the dearth which accom- 

 panied the wars of Desmond, in the reign 

 of Queen Elizabeth in England. 



The poet Spenser, who was an eye- 

 witness to the distress of the time, says 

 that the famine slew far more than the 

 sword, and that the survivors were un- 

 able to walk, but crawled out of the 

 woods and glens. "They looked like 

 anatomies of death ; they did eat the dead 

 carrion and one another soon after, inso- 

 much as the very carcases they spared 

 not to scrape cut of their graves. To a 

 plot of watercresses and shamrocks they 

 flocked as to a feast." 



Ireland's greatest hours of travail 

 were postponed, however, until the two 

 great famines of the nineteenth century, 

 brought about in both instances by the 

 failure of her potato crops. 



The famine of 1822 was but a prelude 

 to the desolation which swept over the 

 island in 1845- 1846. The earlier failure 

 of the potato crop should have fore- 

 warned the people of the disaster which 

 they were constantly inviting, and many 

 reformers preached for years against the 

 practice of neglecting the cultivation of 

 all grains in favor of the American tuber. 



"While the agriculturalists of the con- 

 tinent were suffering from overproduc- 

 tion, a grievous famine arose in Ireland 

 in 1822, showing the anomalies of her 

 situation, resulting from the staple food 

 of her population differing from that 

 of surrounding nations, or the limitation 

 of her commercial exchanges with her 

 neighbors," says Wade's British History. 

 "Her distresses from scarcity were ag- 

 gravated by the agrarian outrages, origi- 

 nating in the pressure of tithes and rack- 

 rents on the peasantry and small farmers. 

 Several- of the ringleaders of these dis- 

 orders were apprehended by the civil and 

 military powers and great numbers exe- 

 cuted or transported." 



This period of stress in 1822 proved 

 to be the rapids above the great cataract 

 of calamity over which the Irish people 

 plunged in 1845. In the latter year a 

 pestilential blight of unexampled severity 

 caused the whole potato crop to rot. 

 Three-fourths of the population of the 

 island was entirely dependent upon this 

 staple for food at that time. The result- 

 ing suffering can scarcely be imagined. 



AMERICA AMONG THE ElRST TO AID THE) 

 IRISH 



As soon as the seriousness of the situ- 

 ation was realized aid was rushed to the 

 starving people from all quarters of the 

 globe, America being among the fore- 

 most sending food. The British Gov- 

 ernment established relief works, and 

 throngs of peasants rushed to get "the 

 Queen's pay." 



In March and April, 1847, 2,500 died 

 weekly in the workhouses alone. Thou- 

 sands of starving peasants poured into 

 England, many dying of famine fever 

 while on board the emigrant ships. The 

 total death toll was between 200,000 and 

 300,000. 



Owing to deaths and emigration, the 

 population of the island was reduced 

 from 8,300,000 in 1845 to 6,600,000 six 

 years later, and has been declining stead- 

 ily ever since, until today it is about 

 4,300,000. 



The pages of India's history are black 

 with the blotches of famine. This vast 

 and densely populated peninsula has been 

 the very haunt of hunger for ages. Its 



