27. Among the important inventions of this reign, may be mentioned that of the Electric Telegraph, by means of which communications can be made between places a hundred miles apart in one moment, or indeed to any imaginable distances.
28. I have already mentioned the distressed condition of great numbers of the Irish people; and am sorry to have now to say that their misery has been greatly increased in the last three years, by the failure of the potato crops, on which the lower orders in Ireland depend for their subsistence.
29. This food they can, with two or three months labor in the year, grow for themselves; and as they are, unfortunately, contented with such poor living, it is a very sad thing for them when a bad season occurs, and the potatoes are spoiled; which happens generally once in six or seven years.
30. But there have now been three bad seasons following each other; and this calamity has caused so much distress, that thousands have died of fevers and other diseases, occasioned by want of wholesome and sufficient food.
31. The Parliament expended several millions of money in relieving their distresses, and providing them employment. Large sums of mo-
