the labourers when reduced occasionally to destitution. The mendicants, living upon spontaneous charity from day to day, of course contract idle dissolute habits, and become regardless of the future. But there is scarcely any example of these mendicants being implicated in outrages, or resistance of lawful authority. They consist chiefly of women and children, with a few men, disabled by age cr disease from labouring. An able-bodied man is but rarely seen begging in the country parts of Ireland. Mendicants, therefore, are not likely to be guilty of outrages. They have their own peculiar vices; but outrage, and resistance of lawful authority, are by no means to be enumerated among them.

"On the other hand, the destitute labourers are far from being regardless of the future. Perhaps, there is scarcely a peasantry to be found anywhere, who look forward to the future with more anxiety. How could a people, who are receiving no regular wages for seven months in the year, exist without habits of forethought. The rigid economy with which they husband their slender means to carry them through the idle seasons, sometimes for months together, stinting themselves to one meal in the day, would astonish the most provident of the English peasants. Even their early marriages, reckless of consequences as they may appear to one who cannot sympathise with their circumstances, are not entered into without a regard for the future. Having no means of laying up any thing for old age or sickness, and no public relief to which to betake themselves, they look to a family of children, when they come to maturity, as the hope of their declining years. And, although they are aware, that the children may be left fatherless before they be capable of labour; yet knowing also, that the only resource of a woman, without a father or husband to support her, is begging, they regard a family of young children as rather an assistance, than a hindrance, in obtaining a maintenance by mendicancy."

Mr. Revans, of whom we have already made mention, and who was employed in the Poor Law inquiry both of England and Ireland, has suggested other recommendations, and advanced other statements on the subject, not merely than those which Mr. Nicholls has so confidently advocated, but such as are at variance even with the Reports of the Irish Commissioners under whom he acted. Our author characterizes this young gentleman as being "animated by as magnanimous a contempt of evidence, and to be able to dispose of numbers and calculations with as much of easy legerdemain as Mr. Nicholls,"-alleging that he, Mr. Revans," seems not aware that there are qualifications of infinitely more importance for forming just judgments on subjects so complex and difficult, than that which is to be gained by shuffling among official papers, extracting and arranging evidence, making up statistical tables, and corresponding with Inspectors and Assistant-Commissioners; -namely (to say nothing of unbiassed rectitude of purpose), a knowledge of human nature, of the character and habits of the people to be dealt with, patient examination, accuracy of calculation," and other requisites, of which not a few of those who have speculated

on the Poor Laws both in this and other countries, are deplorably defective.

We allude to Mr. Revans and his pamphlet here, however, not for the mere sake of showing how our author can administer counsel or reproof, but that we may have an opportunity of introducing a few of the differences of statement and opinion that exist between him and Mr. Nicholls, as given in the pages of these "Strictures." The contrast is not an incurious one.

"Mr. Nicholls is quite certain that relief provided for 80,000 persons will be amply sufficient, provided it be in workhouses.

"Mr. Revans thinks it will be prudent, at least, to provide relief for 800,000 persons.

"Mr. Nicholls estimates the expense of maintaining each pauper at 1s. per week.

"Mr. Revans estimates the expense at sixpence per week.

"Mr. Nicholls proposes a workhouse for every 400 square miles; the workhouses being thus at the distance of 20 miles from one another.

"Mr. Revans takes pains to prove that 20 miles is too great a distance, and proposes a workhouse for every 100 square miles, being at the distance of 10 miles from one another.

"Mr. Nicholls proposes that each of his workhouses shall contain 800 people.

"Mr. Revans proposes that each of his workhouses shall contain 200. Mr. Nicholls proposes that only whole families shall be received into the workhouse.

"Mr. Revans proposes that men alone be received, and the wives and children be relieved at home.

"Mr. Nicholls proposes that no relief shall be given out of the workhouse.

"Mr. Revans proposes that extern relief shall be given, not only to the wives and children of the labourers who are intern paupers, but to persons 'infirm through age or accident.'

"Mr. Nicholls proposes to leave a discretionary power in his Board of Guardians to receive or reject applicants for admission.

"Mr. Revans proposes that an Act of Parliament shall be made that if the master of any asylum shall refuse entrance to any on demanding it, or eject any one who complies with the rules of the house, that he shall be dismissed his situation; and if the provision is local, that every parish shall for every refusal to admit a claimant into the house, be liable to pay a heavy to the King.' This is securing a legal right to the poor for relief with a vengeance. One could almost suppose that this notion of legislation had been borrowed from the Arabian Nights' Entertainments; and we doubt not that as much ingenuity in avoiding the sentence would be displayed by the said masters of asylums as that which was displayed in the thousand and one tales of the amiable princess, who was naturally desirous of keeping possession of her head as long as possible; or peradventure, from the edict of the King in Tom Thumb, for promoting universal cheerful content :

"The man who frowns this day shall lose his head,
And then-he'll have no face to frown withal!"

"Are these the men and these the schemes by which the destinies of eight millions of people are to be determined, and the counsels of a mighty empire to be influenced? Let these two gentlemen first settle the matter of their workhouse system between themselves, and then come forward and offer something like consistent feasible advice, founded upon a careful examination of evidence, and upon severe and accurate calculation; but let not the Public or the Government be abused by such mockeries of data and reasoning and computation."

But we must return with our author to a consideration of how far Ireland resembles England in those points on which a provision for the poor must depend; and leaving the investigation of this similarity in regard to the extent, nature, and effects of destitution, we turn to the Means which Ireland possesses of relieving it. And here, it is well asked, did Mr. Nicholls find the same indications of wealth, of ability to bear a heavy taxation in Ireland, that he was accustomed to see in England? Did he find, in short, a class to any extent similar to the class who are the rate-payers in England? To these and such like questions, we need not occupy time and space in replying, but go forward to the remarks made on particular fallacies, which seem to have been taken for granted by Mr. Nicholls. The tendency and importance of some of these fallacies may be apprehended from our author's statements.

"Mr. Nicholls takes it for granted that there is no other destitution in Ireland than that of the mendicants. But it is very well known that many of the mendicants are better off, in point of fact, than the labouring poor, and would be among the very last to avail themselves of the workhouses. The persons most likely to avail themselves of the workhouses are those wretched families who, in some seasons of the year, are reduced to exist on food which an English farmer would not give to his hogs; and unless Mr. Nicholls contrive to render his workhouses so irksome that the poor peasant would rather feed on green potatoes and weeds than enter them, they will be filled with the destitute labouring classes, and the mendicants will be supported as they were before, so that the farmer must then feed, not only the 80,000 destitute labourers, but the mendicants besides.

"But may not the farmer, if he chooses, refuse relief to the mendicants ? If he could by so doing force them into the work houses, doubtless he might; but if the workhouses are already overflowing, on what gronnd can he refuse them? Besides, as Mr. Nicholls reminds us in the very next paragraph, a contribution may be rendered almost as compulsory by custom as if imposed by legislative enactment,' and if this be true any where, it is true in Ireland."

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But, says Mr. Nicholls, we purpose to put an end to mendicity."

"We could tell him that the whole army of Great Britain would not put an end to mendicancy in Ireland, if the people were not satisfied that the mendicants would be otherwise provided for; and that the attempt to put

an end to it by force would be execrated as an act of the most barbarous persecution. Of this Mr. Nicholls seems to be aware, for he admits, that unless the state offer an alternative for the support obtained by begging, it would be in vain to prohibit it. Does he then propose to offer an alternative to the vagrants? If they were to be the first to avail themselves of the workhouses, he would, to the amount of 80,000 of them, be offering them such an alternative; but if the workhousess be previously occupied by a class much more likely to occupy them, where is the alternative? The rate-payer then must, as we have said, contribute his share towards the support of the workhouse, and support the mendicants besides.

"And let it be supposed on the other hand, that all the mendicants in Ireland were lodged in workhouses, what relief would then be afforded to the destitute labourers? They are left to feed on their green potatoes and weeds, just as they were before. Besides, Mr. Nicholls altogether forgets, that if any considerable number of the labouring class enter the workhouses, they must be much better fed than they can feed themselves at home They, may perhaps be tempted by superior food, to submit for some months in the year, to the loss of liberty, the breaking up of their families, and all the other items of the purposely contrived irksomeness of the workhouse. But they certainly never will consent to these privations, and at the same time to feed no better than they did at home. People never can be brought into a workhouse to live on one meal a day, and that meal to consist of green potatoes and weeds. The farmer, therefore, must also pay for this better feeding of the poor in the workhouse."

But, guided by English experience, the writer of the present pamphlet says, the most formidable part of the additional burden which the farmers would have to bear, would arise from the increased improvidence of the peasantry, encouraged by the prospect of relief; nor are we prepared to say that this prospect as already held out, may not have ere this raised some deplorable exaggerations among the Irish people, and produced those relaxations that may be ruinously felt before the potatoe crop is available.

"The state of the account with the rate-payers, therefore, stands thus. At present they have to feed the beggars; and that, by Mr. Nicholls's own account, is burdensome enough. But let these workhouses be once established, and while they would have to feed the beggars still, they would also have to pay for the expenses of erecting and governing the workhouses; also, the maintenance of 80,000 inmates; also, for the additional consumption of food which would be occasioned among the labourers not in the workhouses, by the prospect of relief being held out to them.

But it is said, that no legal right to relief in Ireland is to be proposed. Tell us how you are to deprive the people of a right to a fund, the title to which is to be destitution. The Irish peasantry are not that people, even should we confine their appeal to their representatives in parliament, or their advocates out of it. They would make their rights be felt to be higher than the law itself. "Thus, again, we conclude, that in regard to the means of relieving destitution, Ireland and England are as unlike as perhaps any two countries VOL. II. (1837) no. I.

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in Europe. An attempt is to be made to counterbalance that objection, by refusing to the poor of Ireland that legal right to relief which is given to the English poor. The very proposals of such a difference between the two countries, and the reason given for it, namely, that the resources of the country would not be sufficient to bear the demand which such a right vested in the people would create, indicates the totally different condition of these two portions of the United Kingdom, in regard to the extent of destitution, and the means existing for its relief, even in the estimation of the advocates of the new measure. But our more direct answer is, that, pass the Bill for raising the fund, and the people will look after their right to a share of that fund, and establish it too, with an energy and power, before which poor Mr. Nicholls, who seems to have some ambition for governing the Irish as well as the English paupers, will soon find himself to be as imbecile and helpless as an infant."

Lastly, we come to the Agency which Ireland possesses, as compared with England, for conducting the Poor-house system. Here, Mr. Nicholls despairs of finding such a machinery in a great majority of parishes, although he inclines to think that within an area, containing 400 square miles, it may be got at; but of this he is by no means confident. In England, it is found practicable, safe, and beneficial to permit magistrates to be guardians ex officio, and clergymen either by election or ex officio. But for Ireland, the proposer of the poor-law so closely handled by our author, feels that such an arrangement would be dangerous and impracticable; and justly does he thus feel, for

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'In districts placed under the direction of Protestants, unless the present race of Protestant gentry and clergy are very different indeed from their predecessors in all time past, they would give every possible preference to Protestants. All the principal officers and servants, male and female, would be Protestant. Any indulgences that could be procured in the workhouse would take a similar direction; and many snug warm corners would certainly be secured for superannuated domestics, old nurses, wornout coachmen; and the establishments would soon be made to serve the double purpose of relieving such appendages of the families of the gentry, and relieving the gentry themselves of the burden of providing for them.

In some districts Roman Catholics would be able to withstand Protestant influence to some extent, at least in the election of Guardians, and then what would be the result? Obviously to render the excitements and animosities of contested elections perennial. Protestant landlords would permit Roman Catholics to manage funds, voluntarily contributed by themselves in their own way, because they cannot do otherwise; but they certainly would not concede one particle of the power of taxing their own property, and managing the fund so levied to others, which they could possibly retain in their own hands. We should, therefore, have landlord against priest, and priest against landlord, as in contested elections for members of Parliament, and the poor people roused to a higher excitement, and a more furious struggle, in proportion to the nearer interest which they would have in the question at issue. Political liberty and