Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 March 1878 — Bitter Feelings Engendered by the Irish Famine. [ARTICLE]

Bitter Feelings Engendered by the Irish Famine.

Among the most baleful and long-lived of the results of “ the great famine” are the bitter feelings which it engendered between the Irish and the English. The former, their brains yet afire with the memory of the unspeakable horrors, consider the tardiness and insufficiency of English aid a crime, and call the famine a “slaughter;” while the latter, mindful of the torture of sympathy which their own generous hearts endured, and of the splendid contributions they,, forth, are maddened by the fierce ingratitude of the sufferers. - It is a soeef that may never be healed; but Mirf SullMn’s efforts to explain the sad misunderstandings are of great value, coming from one of the victims, who feels with an Irish heart, and who is yet keen-sighted, liberal and patriotic. He feels that the noble generosity of the English people has been forgotten in a frenzy of reproach against the English Government of that day.' When the warning voices were rais id, when, even, the storm had buret, the Government refused to move beyond the speed and limits of ordinary constitutional methods. Red tape killed its thousands in Ireland as certainly as if it had been a bowstring about their necks. While the smitten fields were strewed withrottingcorpses, thenobles and statesmen in England were flatly denying, in public speeches, that there was any famine in Ireland. The British naval authorities even refused the loan of a ship to transport across the channel the generous contributions of the people, because it was contrary to all regulations ; while, immediately upon this fatal strictness, the American war-vessels Macedonia and Jamestown arrived, brihging salvation from the far-off shores. Who oan wonder that the Irish fail to make needful allowance, and feel their blood maddened at the memory of that dreadful time? The Government’s fatal tardiness, and its still more exasperating blunders; the glorious generosity of the English people.; the strange Sentimental obstacles raised in England; the embittered hinderances in Ireland—are they not known to all readers i If not, they are given clearly, almost dispassionately, in the pages of “ New Ireland. ” The results, at least, are written all over the face of the unfortunate isle. The old simplicity of life and manners is forever gone ; the robberies and depredations which starving, maddened creatures were driven to commit have banished the times when no door was ever padlocked, and every passing stranger was welcomed for the night The noble temperance movement, too, was checked

and nearly desfttJT’ed; the poor peasants, denfcd food, tattled to the bottle, and the-vile appetite once mon regained ita throne. But far deeper scars than