CHAPTER VI.
"There is no god, the oppressors say,
To mete us out chastisement."
POOR-HOUSES, TURNIPS, AND BLACK BREAD.
These splendid monuments of Ireland's poverty number no less than one hundred and thirty, and some contain a thousand, and some two thousand, and in cases of emergency they can heap a few hundreds more. Before the famine they were many of them quite interesting objects for a stranger to visit, generally kept clean, not crowded, and the food sufficient. But when famine advanced, when funds decreased, when the doors were besieged by imploring applicants, who wanted a place to die, that they might be buried in a coffin, they were little else than charnel houses, while the living, shivering skeletons that squatted upon the floors, or stood with arms folded against the wall, half-clad, with hair uncombed, hands and face unwashed, added a horror if not terror to the sight. Westport Union had long been celebrated for its management, its want of comfort, in fire, food, lodging, and room; but stay and die, or go out and die, was the choice. Making suitable allowances for a rainy day—the house undergoing some changes when I visited it—there then
