Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No. 398, December 1848

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Various. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No. 398, December 1848

MRS HEMANS

ON THE MISERIES OF IRELAND, AND THEIR REMEDIES

THE CAXTONS. PART VIII

REPUBLICAN FIRST-FRUITS

PROPHECIES FOR THE PRESENT

SIGISMUND FATELLO

THE "GREEN HAND."

EASTLAKE'S LITERATURE OF THE FINE ARTS

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In resuming this subject, we feel that we cannot be justly accused of going out of our own province, or of meddling with matters which concern only our neighbours. In the present state of this country, we not only recognise the people of Ireland as our fellow-subjects, but we practically feel, as we ought to do, that their miseries are reflected upon us. This might be illustrated in various ways, but there is one illustration which comes peculiarly home to all people of this country at this moment. Much has been said and written, of late years, on the sanitary condition of the great towns of this country, and on the importance of thorough cleansing and draining, as a preservative against the epidemic diseases which have so often lately afflicted, and in some instances nearly decimated, our population; and when we state that, in the neighbouring city of Glasgow, during last year only, the mortality was one in nineteen of the population, and that the number of deaths exceeded the number of births by more than sixteen thousand, – that the mortality from fever, in particular, is known very generally to fall upon those who, in a worldly point of view, are the most valuable lives in society, and that a new and still more appalling epidemic is already among us – we have surely said enough to show that there cannot be a more important or serious object of contemplation, or of inquiry, than the means of purification and sanitary improvement of such graves of the human race, as so many parts of that and others of our great towns are at this moment.

It is equally certain that "atmospheric impurity" has been justly charged as the most general and effective of all the causes, which so depress the vital energies as to dispose the living human body to suffer, and sink under, such visitations of Providence.

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Now, if the foregoing exposition of the main cause of the redundant population in Ireland is correct, it follows that the legislature of this country, which has so long approved and sanctioned that state of the laws which withhold from the suffering population of Ireland the right of relief, as it has shared the national sin, ought also to share the sacrifices by which the consequences of that sin may be expiated. For a time, therefore, and particularly after the famine which has befallen their country, the proprietors and capitalists in Ireland may reasonably expect a certain amount of aid from the legislature of England (granted, of course, with proper safeguards against abuse or misapplication), to enable them to perform their newly-prescribed duties towards their own poor.

Now, there are two modes of relief, both to the proprietors and the poor in Ireland, which may be afforded by government, or rather which may be aided and directed by government, to a much greater degree than has been yet done – certainly at a much less expense than the relief-works of the year 1846, when several millions, contributed from the British treasury, were expended on the roads in Ireland, with an injurious rather than beneficial effect; – and the results of which, if they are carried into effect with common prudence, may be expected to be so distinctly beneficial, as assuredly to reconcile the British public to the expenditure.

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