It might be thought that in a Christian, and especially a Roman Catholic country, the danger of starvation could never be very practical--that men, and still more women and children, bearing in their forms and faces the stamp of actual want, of pinching hunger, would never be denied. But Senior's experiences of the Irish famine pointed to a different conclusion. Death by famine is at last rapid, sudden, and unexpected. On the road to Kenmare, from which many Irish emigrants were despatched to America, corpses were daily found with collapsed stomachs _and money in their pockets_. Hoping to reach the port, keeping their money to pay their passage, death had overtaken them unawares; and this in the face of organized measures of relief, the largest and most liberal that public or private charity has ever provided. In cases of prolonged and extreme distress, but for the Poor Law, hundreds would die of want almost unawares, before want had overcome their reluctance to beg. And if actual starvation were rare, yet in the absence of a recognized right to food and shelter, the fear of starvation must be ever present. This spectral horror, Tocqueville evidently thought, haunted the imagination of the French operative; and had much to do with the popularity of Socialism in a country of diffused property and general thrift, and with the ferocity of Socialistic or Red Republican insurrections. Charity, however liberal, is an uncertain and--to their credit be it spoken--to the majority of French operatives, a repulsive and degrading resource. It cannot exorcise the hideous spectre of actual famine, which, though remote, seems ever to threaten them, their wives and their children; and which in times of distress and depression looms terribly near, distinct, and horrible. No wonder that men haunted by such a spectre should be driven to gloomy envy, sullen hate, and outbreaks of ferocity worse than those provoked by actual suffering. No wonder that any schemes, however frantic and however unrighteous, should have charms for a class whose reason is disturbed by the perpetual vision of that ultimate but undeniably possible horror. We have seen in France within the last few weeks moral portents which can hardly be ascribed to any other final cause an atrocious murder committed by workmen, and, what is infinitely worse, extenuated and almost approved by responsible legislators. It is probable that the Belgian riots approach as near as any witnessed in Europe during the last two centuries to a revolt of actual want. Belgium has secured an artificial manufacturing prominence--a disproportionate trade to hard toil and low wages. The latter had lately been forced down to the _minimum_, as profits had been well-nigh extinguished, by the general depression of business. In fear of actual want, the populace rose, wasted farms, destroyed factories, plundered and levied blackmail--in a word, tried to inflict on others the misery that had maddened themselves.