"We, the undersigned Relief Committee, having carefully examined the present state of small farmers and labourers in the twenty townlands comprising the electoral division of Taghmon, Co. Wexford, find that both classes are, we are pained to say, suffering very much—some reduced to acute want, having found some families in such a wretched state that they had not tasted a morsel of food for forty-eight hours! We had hoped, before making this investigation, that their state was not so bad, and that we would be spared the disagreeable necessity of applying to your Committee for relief.

"We have found 59 families, or 236 persons, more or less, suffering, and we are convinced that many of the farming class are in great want, but are too proud to disclose their poverty.

"The distress is nearly universal; the destitution in many families of small farmers complete, as well as the labouring class, and nothing but the most energetic exertions of the charitable will be able to save them from death by starvation.

The total quantity of harvest produce of all kinds would, in our opinion, not suffice page 59 for the home consumption; find being compelled by landlords to sell, to pay their rents, what they should have kept for food for their families, are now reduced to deplorable suffering—without employment, without food—save what the benevolent give them—without fuel, without bed-clothing: their condition is truly wretched.

"In this locality landlords will not assist their tenants by providing seeds, &c., for the approaching sowing season; and to sow any they may have left would be madness. The fact is, the quality of the harvest, which had been so badly saved, was so inferior that it would have been folly to have used it for sowing purposes. But good or bad, the farmers could not have purchased it as they have not the means of purchasing food for their own families during the many months to come, before the next crop will come to their aid.

"Respectfully asking your prompt succour for our suffering neighbours, which may be addressed to any of the undersigned members of the Committee,