Fri Jan 30, 2015 12:51 pm
DEATHS FROM STARVATION IN THE CITY.
C O R O N E R ' S I N Q U E S T .
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ALTHOUGH it has been our sad duty to record numerous “deaths from starvation,” which have of late given so awful a notoriety to the south and west of the County of Cork, still we have not, ere the present time, in the performance of our melancholy avocation, been compelled to chronicle the fact that two deaths from the want of the merest necessities of life, have occurred in our city within the few preceding days—the undoubted and unimpeachable verdict of a Coroner's Jury attesting to the truth of this startling and truly horrifying fact. An inquest was held on Monday last at one o'clock, in the Shandon Guard House, before Mr. Coroner Jones and a most respectable Jury, on view of the bodies of two young boys, named Denis and John Crowly, who were found dead on Sunday morning in a garret, situate near the Old Market Place, off Mallow Lane, in our City.
Mathias Crowly, a ghastly and famished-looking poor wretch, about 40 years of age, and apparently once of large and robust frame, but now reduced by hunger, and cold, and other privations, almost to a skeleton, was sworn and examined, and deposed as follows :—Denis and John Crowly, the deceased boys, were his children ; they were aged resepctively three and five years ; before he came to Cork lived in the parish of Glountane, near Mallow, in this County ; had left it more than three months ago for want of anything to earn and came to Cork from hearing the report “that there was plenty to earn there ;” held no ground in Glountane ; his wife and four children two of whom are since dead, came with him to Cork, and was some days without eating a meal ; his wife and children had no means of support except from him, or whatg they sometimes picked up by begging ; after he came to Cork his wife and children went into the Workhouse ; but she stopped there only for three or four days, as Denis Crowly was ill when she went in, and was threatening to show the small pox, and the women there told her if she did not remove them “that they would all die upon her ;” that was more than three weeks ago, since which time he did not get a day's work, and for the three months that he was in the city, only was employed for 7 days ; his son John, after bein removed from the Workhouse, shewed the small pox ; a doctor came to see him one day, but told his wife that he could not do anything for him ; the wife was not able to go out to beg for some weeks, as she had to mind the children, who were so ill ; used to get, after being out all the day, only three half-pence, and sometimes two pence, with which he bought bread to feed a family of six in number ; upon his oath did not get one good meal for the last month, before the one he got the previous night from the police ; seldom got even a bad meal more than once a day, nor did his wife or children get enough to last ; often stinted himself, so that the children should have the more ; Denis was recovered from the small pox more than a week before his death, and was able to eat if he got it ; the other child had the same disease previous to his death ; frequently heard deceased saying “they were dying of the hunger ;” had no bed, and all slept together ; had no covering except an old thin quilt ; had to lie down on the floor upon a little sop of straw ; Denis died on Friday morning, and his brother died on the following morning.
Dr. W. Beamish being sworn, deposed that he had examined the two bodies ; the younger one had some small pox pustules out on him ; they both presented the appearance of emaciation to the greatest extent he had ever witnessed ; there were no marks of violence on either body ; made a dissection of the younger, and examined the stomach, which he found contracted, and totally destitute of every appearance of food ; the intestines presented no appearance of disease ; the omentum was completely deficient ; and there was not a particle of fat to be discovered on any part of the body ; from the appearance had no doubt in his mind that the cause of death was from starvation.
In answer to the Coroner, Dr. Beamish said that although he had not made a post mortem examination on the other body, yet from the external appearances, he had no hesitation in saying that the death of the second boy was caused by the same as the other, namely, want of proper food.
Dr. Beamish further added, that of the two children yet living, one was afflicted with the small pox, and the other was very emaciated, and that something should be done for them quickly. In conclusion, the learned gentleman stated that in the whole course of his professional career, where he was often necessitated to visit the most wretched abodes of misery, that he never saw anything he could compare to the sight that met him on entering the miserable place where the bodies lay.
Head Constable Ewen Porter, of the Shandon station, in compliance with the wish expressed by the Jury, was next sworn and examined, and deposed as follows—On Sunday morning at half past ten o'clock, a man came to the station, and informed him that there were two children dead, near the Old Market Place, and enquired of him how he could procure the price of a coffin, as he was totally destitute ; went up to the place and saw the two children dead ; it was in a wretched garrett, in an old house, about nine feet by seven ; there was not a stick of furniture to be seen ; neither was there fire nor a single particle of food in the place ; the two children yet alive were lying on the floor on a sop of straw covered by an old quilt, the head of one of them being in close contact with the feet of its dead brother ; the dead children had only their day clothes on, which were in a most ragged state ; the man who called on him at the station, was present with his wife and whom he knows now to be the father of the boys ; enquired of him whether he had any food and he replied not, and stated that he, his wife and the four children were obliged, for warmth, to sleep together on the same little handful of straw ; brough the man down to the Lower Shandon Soup Depot, and got him 7 quarts of soup, giving also one shilling to the wretched wife to buy bread ; a gentleman, who was there at the time, Mr. James Hegarty, gave her some money also the Rev. Mr. Russell visited the place also with him and remarked to him, on coming out, “that no such case occurred even in Skibbereen ;” acting on the advice of the Rev. Mr. Foley, he attended on the previous day a meeting that was held at the Shandon Station, and the gentlemen present subscribed money very liberally, with which he relieved on that day over 180 persons ; never saw such destitution in his life ; but in all cases they were from the county ; thought it right, from the awful circumstances atending the present case, to call the Coroner's attention to it.
Sergeant Gale also detailed several cases of the most fearful destitution, which had come under his own observation, and Mr. John Gallway requested of him to inform him of the names and residences of the parties, that he might bring the cases before the Society, to which he belonged—he meant the admirable Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, which he knew, although they had but limited funds, would endeavour to mitigate such fearful misery.
The Coroner briefly summed up, calling their attention to the nature of the testimony of the Doctor, when the Jury, without the least hesitation, returned the following verdict :—“That we find that the said Denis and John Crowly came to their deaths from the want of the common necessities of life.”
The gentlemen comprising the Jury, who expressed several times during the investigation, their anxiety that the details should go fully before the public, that something must be done to arrest such fearful destitution as that elicited before them that day, subscribed most liberally before they retired, for the relief of poor Crowly and his family, and the Coroner made an award of Ten Shillings for the same charitable purpose, the money to be entrusted to Sergeant Porter.