will not last more than eight days; and when it was proposed to provide seed-potatoes for those who had lost their stock in the failure of 1845-6, the plan was found impracticable, because nearly a ton an acre would have been required for the purpose. The potato does not, in fact, last even a single year. The old crop becomes unfit for use in July, and the new crop, as raised by the inferior husbandry of the poor, does not come into consumption until September. Hence, July and August are called the “meal months,” from the necessity the people are under of living upon meal at that period. This is always a season of great distress and trial for the poorer peasants; and in the districts in which the potato system has been carried to the greatest extent, as, for instance, in the barony of Erris in the county of Mayo, there has been an annual dearth in the summer months for many years past. Every now and then a “meal year” occurs, and then masses of the population become a prey to famine and fever, except so far as they may be relieved by charity. In 1739 an early and severe frost destroyed the potatoes in the ground, and the helplessness and despair of the people having led to a great falling off of tillage in 1740, the calamity was prolonged to the ensuing year, 1741, which was long known as the _bliadhain an air_, or year of slaughter. The ordinary burial-grounds were not large enough to contain those who died by the roadside, or who were taken from the deserted cabins. The “bloody flux” and “malignant fever,” having begun among the poor, spread to the rich, and numerous individuals occupying prominent positions in society, including one of the judges (Mr. Baron Wainwright), and the Mayor of Limerick (Joseph Roche, Esq.), and many others of the corporation, fell victims. Measures were adopted at Dublin on the principle of the English Poor Law, some of the most essential provisions of which appear to have been well understood in the great towns of Ireland in that day; and it was “hoped, since such provision is made for the poor, the inhabitants of the city will discourage all vagrant beggars, and give their assistance that they may be sent to Bridewell to hard labour, and thereby free themselves from a set of idlers who are a scandal and a reproach to the nation.” Soup-kitchens and other modes of relief were established in different parts of the country, in which Primate Boulter and the Society of Friends took the lead; and numerous cargoes of corn were procured on mercantile account from the North American Colonies, the arrival of which was looked for with great anxiety. In only one point is there any decided difference between what then took place in Ireland and the painful events which have just occurred, after the lapse of upwards of a century. The famine of 1741 was not regarded with any active interest either in England or in any foreign country, and the subject is scarcely alluded to in the literature of the day. No measures were