Many of the High-Caste, already anticipating danger to themselves--fearing not merely loss of revenue, but the savage ferocity of starving multitudes--promote schemes by which large numbers of the poor are shipped off far beyond the great Seas (so that they never shall return)--to starve, or live, as may chance. "England is well rid of them!" they say. In the neighbouring island, Ireland, an actual starvation of the people in vast numbers happened a short time since. As in England, the poor _serfs_, tilling the soil and owning none; at _the best_, toiling for the High-Castes for such pittance as would buy the cheapest food--_potatoes_; when these failed, could buy nothing--all else too dear. _These failed, the serfs died_ by thousands and tens of thousands. Not because Ireland was destitute of food; such was the abundance that ample stores were actually sold for other and distant tribes! but because, in the midst of plenty, the starving were powerless to touch it; it was out of _their_ reach--out of the reach of paupers! The potatoes were not--and they must die. The annals of no people record such a depopulation of a fertile land, in the midst of peace and plenty--there is no parallel! A people dying, not from idleness, nor unwillingness to work; not from want of food at hand; not from the ravages of war, nor pestilence; but from sheer poverty! Yet, the English Barbarians boast that no people are so rich, so generous! In our own annals are recorded great sufferings from floods, failures of crops, and natural causes; where our vast populations have been for a time _deficient_ in _food_; but we have nothing to compare with this Barbarian horror! The _Thames_ is the only considerable river. This flows through the greatest of all the cities of the West--London. It is an insignificant stream--much less than even the _Quang-tun_, in our chief Southern province.