#extermination
Thu, 26 May 2022 19:16:47
The Poor-law, said to be for the relief of the people and the means of
their salvation, was the instrument of their destruction … That law, too,
laid down a form for evicting the people, and thus gave the sanction and
encouragement of legislation to exterminate them … calmly and quietly
from Westminster [seat of the British parliament] … did the decree go forth
which has made the temporary but terrible visitation of a potato rot the
means of exterminating, through the slow process of disease and houseless
starvation, nearly the half of the Irish.
~15 December 1849