FAMINE IN IRELAND

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 10, 1861

FAMINE IN IRELAND.

THE following extract, which is taken from an article now going the rounds of the papers, but which originally appeared in the Dublin Freeman, an Irish journal, gives us to understand what the people of Ireland may expect if prompt measures are not taken to provide against the failure of the potato crop:

"The cry of distress which has issued from all parts of the western and north-western coast of Ireland too nearly resembles that which we heard in 1846 and 1847, the very memory of which even at this distant period appals the stoutest hearts. We have been at some trouble to ascertain the actual condition of the broad belt of country from which the worst accounts have reached us, and we regret to say that there is no exaggeration whatever in even the strongest statements that have been placed before the public. Along the seacoast the prospects of the people already begin to assume the aspect of distress; and though there yet remains a small portion of the potato crop, which may be available for some weeks, there is no possibility of averting a local famine and all its accompanying and consequent horrors, if prompt and decisive measures be not taken in time to provide against the impending calamity. From one district the information before us amounts to an assurance that three-fourths of the potato crop are gone, and that the remaining fourth is so deteriorated in quality as to be hardly fit for human food."