Note 70 — Front matter (continued 2)

The Irish peasant made up for the deficiency of nutritive qualities in the potato, by the quantity he ate, amounting generally to as much as fourteen pounds in a single day; and it was therefore a general complaint at first, that the Indian corn left an uneasy sensation, arising from the absence of the habitual distension of the organs of digestion. The half raw state in which it was often eaten, arising partly from ignorance of the proper mode of cooking it, and partly from impatience to satisfy the cravings of hunger, also concurred with the previous debilitated state of the people, to produce sickness when it was first introduced. All this, however, has been got over, and the people have now not only become accustomed to the use of a grain food, but they prefer it, and declare that they feel stronger and more equal to hard work under the influence of a meal of stirabout, than of potatoes; and their improved appearance fully bears out this conclusion. One main cause of the fact which has been so often remarked, that the Irishman works better out of Ireland than in it, is, that when he leaves his native country and obtains regular employment elsewhere he commences at the same time a more strengthening diet than the potato. It is commonly observed in Canada, that the Irish emigrants, although a much larger race of men than the French Canadians, are, for some time after their arrival, inferior to them as farm labourers; and this difference is attributed to their food. The Canadian labourer, who receives his food as part of his hire, has an ample breakfast on bread and milk. He dines at midday on soupe aux pois, with a full quantity of salt pork and bread à discrétion. At four o’clock he is allowed a luncheon of bread and onions, and at night he has a ragout of meat and vegetables for his supper. He however works laboriously, and generally from sunrise to sunset, and is scarcely ever absent a day from his work. An Irishman cannot endure this continuous labour without better food than the potato; and in every way it is desirable to teach him the use of a more substantial diet, both to enable him to give a proper amount of labour for his hire, and in order to raise him to a higher standard as a social being. We shall not consider the object finally accomplished until the people of Ireland live upon a bread and meat diet, like those of the best parts of England and Scotland.