appeared little capital left for comfort, had the day been sunny, and the house without any unusual upturnings. The "yaller Indian," here, was the dreadful thing that they told me, "swells us and takes the life of us;" and as it was there cooked, it may be scrupled whether any officer in the establishment would select it for his food, though he assured the inmates "he could eat it, and it was quite good enough for a king." These officers and guardians, many of them, were men who had lived in ease, never accustomed to industry or self-denial, having the poor as vassals under them; and when the potato blight took away all the means of getting rent, what with the increased taxations and the drainings by a troop of beggars at the door, they found themselves approaching a difficult crisis, and to prop up every tottering wall new expedients must be tried. Many of them sought posts of office under government, and were placed in the workhouses to superintend funds and food; and it will not be slander to say, that the ears of government have not been so fortunate with regard to the "slip-shod " honesty of some of these gentry, as in the two thousand which the writer of the Crisis mentions.
When the poor complained, they were told that funds were low, and stinted allowances must be dealt out. Nor did the mischief end here; in proportion as the houses were crowded within, so were the purses drained without; and beside, in proportion to the purloining of funds, so was the stinting of food and the extra drains upon the struggling tradesman and farmer.
