"When, on the 19th inst., we sent you a copy of our resolutions, though even then much misery and sufferings had come under the notice of our Committee, we had no idea of the reality and the extent of the distress. We had since to learn, and, let me add, on the very best authority, the evidence of our own eyes, that many whom we thought to be in comfortable circumstances actually hold pawn tickets for the bed clothes, so necessary in those frosty nights to shield themselves and their little ones from the bitter cold. We have the bitter scenes of '47 re-enacted, and the year of grace, 1880, calling back as a spectre from the tomb, where we had hoped it was buried forever, the ghostly memories of the famine years. Will you believe it, gentlemen, we have seen the poor labourer wrestling with the frost to recover the potato that might have been left behind at the first digging last harvest? Gentlemen, from the fulness of our hearts we thank you for the £25 you allotted to us, and we pray God to bless you for your charity. With a population of 800 families in this (Addergoole) parish, most of them little removed from the condition of cottiers, without funds, as we are, and shut out by the negligence of Lord Lucan (who till this date had formed no Committee), from a share of the Marlborough Fund, how far can £25 relieve the distress of 4000 souls, three-fourths of whom, I declare, on the word of a priest of 49 years' standing to be in the direst want?