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قراءة كتاب A Journal of a Visit of Three Days to Skibbereen, and its Neighbourhood

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‏اللغة: English
A Journal of a Visit of Three Days to Skibbereen, and its Neighbourhood

A Journal of a Visit of Three Days to Skibbereen, and its Neighbourhood

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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earn about three shillings a week. In another cabin we discovered a nailer by the dull light of his fire, working in a space not three feet square. He, too, had a large family, half of whom were down with the fever, and he could earn but two shillings a week. About the middle of this filthy lane, we came to the ruins of a hovel, which had fallen down during the night, and killed a man, who had taken shelter in it with his wife and child. He had come in from the country, and ready to perish with cold and hunger, had entered this falling house of clay. He was warned of his danger, but answered that die he must, unless he found a shelter before morning. He had kindled a small fire with some straw and bits of turf, and was crouching over it, when the whole roof or gable end of earth and stones came down upon him and his child, and crushed him to death over the slow fire. The child had been pulled out alive, and carried to the workhouse, but the father was still lying upon the dung heap of the fallen roof, slightly covered with a piece of canvass. On lifting this, a humiliating spectacle presented itself. What rags the poor man had upon him when buried beneath the falling roof, were mostly torn from his body in the last faint struggle for life. His neck, and shoulder, and right arm were burnt to a cinder. There he lay in the rain, like the carcase of a brute beast thrown upon a dung heap. As we continued our walk along this filthy lane, half-naked women and children would come out of their cabins, apparently in the last stage of the fever, to beg for food, "for the honour of God." As they stood upon the wet ground, one could almost see it smoke beneath their bare feet, burning with the fever. We entered the grave-yard, in the midst of which was a small watch-house. This miserable shed had served as a grave where the dying could bury themselves. It was seven feet long, and six in breadth. It was already walled round on the outside with an embankment of graves, half way to the eaves. The aperture of this horrible den of death would scarcely admit of the entrance of a common sized person. And into this noisome sepulchre living men, women, and children went down to die; to pillow upon the rotten straw, the grave clothes vacated by preceding victims and festering with their fever. Here they lay as closely to each other as if crowded side by side on the bottom of one grave. Six persons had been found in this fetid sepulchre at one time, and with one only able to crawl to the door to ask for water. Removing a board from the entrance of this black hole of pestilence, we found it crammed with wan victims of famine, ready and willing to perish. A quiet listless despair broods over the population, and cradles men for the grave.

Sunday, February 21.—Dr. D—— called at two o'clock, and we proceeded together to visit a lane of hovels on the opposite side of the village. The wretchedness of this little mud city of the dead and dying was of a deeper stamp than the one I saw yesterday. Here human beings and their clayey habitations seemed to be melting down together into the earth. I can find no language nor illustration sufficiently impressive to portray the spectacle to an American reader. A cold drizzling rain was deepening the pools of black filth, into which it fell like ink drops from the clouds. Few of the young or old have not read of the scene exhibited on the field of battle after the action, when visited by the surgeon. The cries of the wounded and dying for help, have been described by many graphic pens. The agonising entreaty for "Water! water! help, help!" has been conveyed to our minds with painful distinctness. I can liken the scene we witnessed in the low lane of famine and pestilence, to nothing of greater family resemblance, than that of the battle field, when the hostile armies have retired, leaving one-third of their number bleeding upon the ground. As soon as Dr. D——

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