week in April during the last six years; the date prefixed being the day on which the week terminated

In seeking to estimate from this table the actual state of pauperism in Ireland during the last five years, we must embrace in one view all the classes relieved, viz., in-door and out-door paupers, as is done in the last column. If we look to the inmates of the workhouses only, we shall be misled by the progressive increase of numbers from 1847 to 1851, in which last year the maximum number was attained. But the fact is, that the augmented numbers in the houses during the years 1850 and 1851, were not owing to a corresponding increase of pauperism, but to the gradual discontinuance of outdoor relief, as the workhouse-accommodation became gradually enlarged. In the year 1852, however, it will be observed, that the general decrease has become so great as to show itself almost as conspicuously by the numbers in the houses as by the numbers relieved out of doors. Henceforward, all, or almost all, relief out of doors will be discontinued,

the house accommodation being now supposed amply sufficient for all future applicants; and it is gratifying to think, that while this arrangement was always in accordance with sound principles of political economy, it is now much more in accordance with the feelings of the poor than it was some years since.

In their Report, dated May, 1848, the Commissioners make the following statement :-" If there has been anything unsatisfactory in the operation of the workhouse as a condition of relief in the present season of severe distress, it is, that in localities where destitution has undoubtedly prevailed, the unwillingness of some poor persons to avail themselves of this mode of relief has been so great, that they have sacrificed their own lives, or the lives of their children, by postponing acceptance too long, or by refusing such relief altogether." And that the reluctance to accept such relief was no transient or superficial feeling among the Irish poor, is most painfully evinced by other documents of an equally authentic kind. I need refer to no others than to the number of deaths "from want or starvation," recorded in the verdicts of coroners' juries, year after year, as given in the Commissioners' Reports. The following is an abstract:

In circumstances so likely to create prejudice, it is probable that a certain proportion of these verdicts might be hardly borne out by the facts; still, there cannot be a doubt of the proofs they afford of the great prevalence and powerful nature of the feelings referred to. Indeed, this is very candidly admitted by the Commissioners themselves in one of their Reports. "We may here state (they say) that several of those verdicts [in the first Return for 1847-8] appear from the Inspectors' reports to have been hastily considered, and pronounced without previous full inquiry into material points; but that, on the other hand, in a majority of the cases inquired into and reported, there is too much reason to apprehend that previous great privation has existed, and either proximately caused or accelerated death, or, as seems to be the far more frequent occurrence, induced disease which had a fatal termination." I. 19.

It will be observed from the table, that these sad occurrences have been progressively decreasing; and I think it may be almost said, at the present time, that the prejudices leading to them hardly exist in a greater degree than is proper,-indicating simply the natural reluctance to exchange a personal home, however miserable, for the mere lifesustaining appliances of a public eleemosynary institution.

From the reports of these workhouses as given in the preceding chapters of this work (much too numerous I doubt not, and containing too many

dry details to be found agreeable to the majority of my readers) I think it will be generally allowed that their condition and general arrangements are such as to afford nearly all the benefits that establishments of the kind can, or ought to afford to men who have the misfortune to need their succour. They yield all the necessaries of life to those who cannot help themselves,-the young, the aged, and the sick; and they supply to healthy adults such an amount of relief as may preserve life and health, and yet give no undue encouragement to the unworthy to prefer an idle or a useless life to a beneficial course of labour. They will, also, I think, be found to contribute an important portion of that machinery now so busily at work in Ireland, for indoctrinating the rising generation in much that their fathers knew not, and which must materially contribute to the nation's progress in one of its most vital aspects, the personal habits and character of the people.

It will not be expected in a work like the present that I should enter further into the general statistical relations of the workhouse establishment in Ireland, however important and interesting these may be; but I cannot dismiss the subject without some additional comment on several of the particulars of which I have taken notice in speaking of the individual workhouses; if it were merely by showing their importance, to exculpate myself from the charge of having encumbered my pages with so many dry details. In performing this task, however,

I must content myself with much more superficial notices than several of the subjects deserve.

1. I have spoken so repeatedly of the admirable order, cleanliness, and general discipline of the workhouses, as also of the intelligence and civility of the masters and other officers, that I refer to them here solely for the purpose of generalising my remarks. I will add, that the arrangements are generally of a kind that affords great facilities for carrying out the objects contemplated in their erection. The Houses have the great advantage of having been planned by excellent architects, who seem to have been permitted to work out their designs without any undue restrictions as to cost.

2. Dietary. The peculiarity of this in the workhouses, as recorded in many preceding pages, will, I doubt not, have attracted the attention of most of my readers; more especially such as are accustomed only to the fare of the people of England. To such persons, two meals only in the twenty-four hours, and these consisting almost exclusively of farinaceous matter, and without a particle of animal food, from one year's end to the other-must seem very inadequate fare, hardly capable of even sustaining life, to say nothing of its insufficiency to support the bodily exertions of an adult working man. When, however, it is remembered that the universal habit of the Irish people of the labouring class, has long been to live almost exclusively on the potato, an article of diet much less nutritive than