"  I  am  a  baker  (said  an  intelligent  witness)  ^  and  ftm  in  the
habit  of  selling  meal^  flour^  and  breads  and  I  never  knew  a
labourer  or  cottier  who  was  able  to  purchase  one  or  the  other ;
they  sometimes  run  themselves  short,  trying  *to  buy  meal  for  a
few  days  at  Christmas  and  Easter/'  "  Many  labourers  who  have
large  families  (said  another  witness)  are  often  four  years  without
purchasing  a  coat,  and  their  wives  are  frequently  five  or  six
years  without  purchasing  either  a  cloak  or  a  gown.  ...  A.  poor
man^s  child  may  be  said  to  go  naked  from  the  age  of  ten
months  to  that  of  ten  years.  Not  more  than  six  labourers'
houses  out  of  twenty  contain  a  bedstead.  A  bedstead  such  as  is
commonly  used,  would  be  got  for  five  shillings,  and  would  con-
tinue fit  for  use  for  about  ten  years,  in  a  dry  cabin,  but  if  the
cabin  be  damp  it  would  rot  in  five  years.  Very  few  cabins  are
staunch ;  not  one  in  five.  I  would  say  that  the  remaining  four
families  half  lie  on  the  ground.^'

Their  wages  were  so  scanty  and  uncertain,  that  they
sometimes  gladly  exchanged  their  labour  for  two  or
three  daily  meals  of  potatoes.*  Such  a  population  lay
dangerously  near  to  the  state  of  mind  where  despera-
tion begins,  but  their  offences  were  never  other  than
those  which  famine  breeds  in  every  community.  It
was  demonstrated  from  recent  official  returns  that  at
this  time  crimes  of  wanton  or  malicious  violence —
such  as  highway  robbery,  rape,  incendiarism,  murder,
manslaughter,  and  maiming  cattle — were  more  numerous
in  England,  in  undisturbed  tranquillity,  than  in  Ireland,

*  "  You  may  estimate  what  a  man's  labour  is  worth,  when  a  fanner  can
^et  as  many  men  as  he  chooses  to  live  with  him  and  work  for  him  all  the
year  through  at  from  12s.  6d.  to  15s.  a  quartor  and  his  diet." — (Mr.  P.
