claim for repayment on the parish to which the pauper belongs, which is that of his birth, unless he have gained a settlement elsewhere by ten years' residence. We have now gone through nearly all the states of Europe, and found in each a methodical system of relief for the poor, embracing all the leading principles of the English system, and, with few exceptions, answering the object proposed, that, namely, of extirpating mendicity, preventing destitution, and removing that excuse for and provocative to crime which destitution necessarily affords. There remain only the nations of the south of Europe, Spain and Portugal, southern Italy, Greece, and Turkey. The reports from some of these countries are wholly wanting. Where we have reports, the relief of the poor seems to be imperfectly organized, though considerable establishments of a charitable nature exist. In fact the monasteries themselves may be considered in these countries as supplying in a great degree the wants of the poor. We have no accounts from Spain, or the Roman or Neapolitan states. In Portugal, besides the monasteries, there are houses of refuge for the poor at various places, called Misericordias,' which are supported by royal gifts, bequests, and private donations. Other houses, called Recolhimentos,' take in a limited number of aged and infirm poor of both sexes, lodge, clothe, and feed them. These establishments are supported in part by the municipalities. There are also public hospitals in the towns where the sick poor are received and treated gratis. Foundling hospitals here, as throughout the south of Europe, and even France and Belgium, offer a ready refuge for illegitimate children and orphans. In most towns there are schools open for the education of poor children free of expense. The institutions for the poor in the Azores seem to be of a similar character. In the Sardinian states there are hospitals for the sick in every town and large village, and many charitable institutions; but there is no sufficient relief secured to the destitute, and, in consequence, the country swarms with mendicants, whom the law, however severe, cannot deter from following their disgusting and degrading avocation. Those who have travelled through that country must have been struck by the contrast it affords in this respect to other European states. In Greece and Turkey there are a few hospitals, charitable establishments of a religious nature, and khans, where vagrants are provided with shelter and food. In Turkey, schools are attached to the mosques, in which children of every description receive gratuitous instruction in reading and writing. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.-The system of the United States was derived from that of England. It is, in fact, the 43rd of Elizabeth, modified in the different provinces by the exigencies of their local circumstances. The States have been much occupied of late, like ourselves, in reforming the administration of their poor-laws. The changes they have made consist principally in endeavouring to avoid giving relief out of the workhouse, and in making the workhouse an abode in which none but the destitute will remain. Compared with our own, the system is in general rigid. We need scarcely remark that this severity is perfectly proper in a country whose boundless margin of unappropriated land, of the first quality, offers a sure resource for every able-bodied person who is willing to live by his industrywhile the same degree of severity would be unjustifiable in an over-peopled country possessing no such resource. Let England offer every able-bodied pauper a free conveyance to her Canadian provinces, and the more rigorous workhouse system of the United States may safely and justly be introduced here-but not till then. We hope this distinction will be borne in mind by our Poor-Law Commissioners, and that they will not be in a hurry to copy the severest regulations of the American system-such as the sale of every pauper's goods before relief is granted to him-the taking away of children from their parents-and their dispersion to different parts of the state beyond their reach or knowledge. The American poor-law fulfils perfectly the great object of the intitution-the prevention of mendicancy, and the disorders which unrelieved destitution could not but occasion. Jonathan grumbles a little sometimes at the cost; and some writers there, as here, have argued, from the occasional abuse of the principle, against its use. But the universal establishment and maintenance of the law in every part of the Confederation is the best proof of its acknowledged utility. Thus it appears that every state in the world professing to call itself civilized, whatever its form of government, whether monarchical or republican, possesses institutions established by positive legal enactments, for preventing destitution, by affording a certain relief to those who are on the verge of it-IRELAND alone excepted! Even Siberia has its poor-law! The despotic government of Russia holds itself responsible for affording the means of existence to every one of its subjects. In Ireland alone is to be found a population abandoned to the mercy of the elements, of chance, or rather of the legal owners of the soil, who are protected by an armed police and a strong military garrison in the exaction of unheard-of pecuniary rents from a destitute tenantry-rents which are only paid by the exportation of the great bulk of the food food raised in the country, leaving those who grow it a bare subsistence on a diet of potatoes, eked out occasionally by weeds! There rests not so foul a blot, we fearlessly assert, on the character of any other government! The wretchedness of the mass of the people of Ireland has no parallel on the face of the globe in any nation, savage or civilized! A population of eight millions, left to live or die as it may happen! And what is the consequence of such neglect? Let the tremendous power exercised by base craft-power based on the misery of the people, and their despair of obtaining protection or relief from the established government and legislature-let this be our first, as it is the most obvious, answer to this question. But the first report of the Commission of Inquiry into the state of the poor in Ireland has just fallen into our hands, and we cannot devote our remaining space to any better purpose than that of giving an abstract of the appalling evidence with which that frightful volume teems of the condition to which neglect has reduced one-third of the population of the British Islands. The volume we have before us embraces only the first part of the subject, namely, the condition of the poor of Ireland, and the imperfect modes of support to which they are driven from want of any legalized system. The inquiry has been carried on in a praiseworthy manner, apparently with perfect fairness and openness ; and the result is given in a form which is not only easily accessible, but obviates all suspicion of management for the purpose of supporting particular views. Assistant commissioners were sent into different parts of the country. They held sittings in some one parish in every barony of seventeen different counties-in all, in upwards of one hundred parishes. At these meetings they obtained the attendance of persons of all classes, from the land-owner and magistrate to the mendicant himself, and by questions addressed to this assemblage, and which were suggested by lists funished from the Central Board, they elicited answers elucidatory of all the different points of inquiry. These answers were written down in the words they were given in, and the minutes of the examination were forwarded immediately to the commission in Dublin. They are now printed as sent in, except that a division has been made of them under several distinct heads, with reference to the different classes of poor, viz.-1. Deserted and Orphan Children; 2. Illegitimate Children, and their Mothers; 3. Widows, with Families of Young Children; 4. the Impotent through Age or Infirmity; 5. the Sick Poor; 6. the Able-bodied out of Work; 7. Vagrants. This mode of treating the subject we consider a very judicious one. It brings the contents of this bulky volume under the eye in distinct masses, each each containing a separate subject, while the local arrangement being preserved throughout each, the reader is enabled to follow that order, if he prefer it. In the English inquiry, there was so great a variety in the modes of administering the poor-laws in different districts, that it became perhaps necessary to arrange the evidence under topographical heads. In Ireland, there is a striking uniformity in the wretched poverty of the people through every quarter of the country, varied only by the different characters of individual landlords or of their agents. The discrepancies that appear on the face of the evidence are not owing to the shifting of the scene from Leinster to Connaught, but from the estate of one noble lord to that of another-or to its being taken down from the mouth of a landlord or a farmer, a rich man or a poor one. Trifling variations of this nature are obvious throughout this volume; but a general admission runs through the whole of the almost intolerable evils of the present state of things. We now present our readers with a brief abstract of the evidence under the several heads above mentioned; and, to avoid all charge of misrepresentation, we shall employ for the most part the very words either of the assistant commissioners themselves, or of the witnesses whom they examined in open courts, and in the presence of their neighbours of every grade in society. 1. Deserted and Orphan Children.-Deserted children are always supposed to be illegitimate. This is the only class of miserable objects for which the law of Ireland has made any provision whatever, being perhaps the only class that should have been excluded from such care, since the public support of foundlings is undoubtedly an inducement to the crime of their desertion. The churchwardens of every parish are bound to take charge of and provide for deserted children. But since the abolition of church cess there has been a difficulty in procuring the necessary funds, for which a presentment by the judge of assize is supposed to be required; and consequently this practice is much discontinued of late. Exposed children not unfrequently perish before they are discovered, and since the closing of the Foundling Hospital, and the increased reluctance of parishes to provide for deserted children, it is the opinion of not a few that infanticide has taken the place of desertion.'-p. 17. Children are often found dead under suspicious circumstances.' 'There are certainly many children buried in private burial-grounds in this and the neighbouring county, with no service performed, and no notice taken of them.' (Mr. St. George, p. 49.) [The children are not always dead when so buried, as witness the case which occurred at the last spring assizes, where a mother was convicted and executed, for burying her infant alive!] E 2 Orphans Orphans are very numerous, especially since the cholera swept off so many of the poor. There is no public provision for them. What becomes of them is scarcely known; some get shelter among friends or relatives: some support themselves imperfectly by beggary: others starve ! Many cases are mentioned of families of orphans, three, four, or five together, the eldest not above eight or nine years old, without a friend to look after them, wandering from door to door, begging for food. In the county of Waterford, near Clonmel, two orphan children died about six years ago of starvation. They were about twelve years old. They perished by the road-side, having fainted away as they were way-faring.'p. 31. 2. Bastardy. Illegitimate children seem to be numerous in most parishes, though their birth is concealed as much as possible, and they often disappear mysteriously. Mr. Nolan' knows of three cases of infanticide in his parish (Tullow, county Carlow), in the last three years, and four besides of desertion.'-p.61. Several cases are mentioned, in different parishes, of the bodies of children being found in canals, rivers, eelweirs, ditches, and bogs, or in dunghills, routed up and partly devoured by swine or dogs, &c. Many such cases must occur for one that is detected by the discovery of the infant's remains. Nothing is so The mother of an illegitimate child may sue the father, by the Irish law, for wages, at petty or quarter sessions. The threat of this proceeding frequently (as in England, under the late law of affiliation) brings the father to agree to marriage. common as husband-hunting in this manner.'-p. 53. But threats of prosecutions for rape are almost as frequent for the same object. Mr. Lyons, P. P., is confident that nine cases out of ten of rape are fictitious, got up for the purpose of forcing marriage.'-p. 53. Prostitution and beggary are the only resources of mothers who are refused marriage, and cannot obtain wages from the father. They are generally shunned. Their children are brought up in vice and misery, and become pests to society, if, as seldom happens, they outlive the age of infancy.'-p. 77. So much for the boasted superiority in morals of the Irish peasantry over the English, whom a long receipt of parish relief is said to have depraved and corrupted. 3. Widows with Children.-A very numerous class. Out of one hundred families there appear to be usually from twelve to eighteen widows. They are generally described as living in a more wretched state than any other class-if there can be degrees where all seem on the verge of starvation. They are seldom half fed. One meal of potatoes a day the utmost they can expect, eked out often with unwholesome weeds.'-p. 141. Mr. Cotter, Rector of the |
