vernment, because such evils as I have described have only to be brought frequently before men's eyes to be made to disappear. In one of my visitations I went into a house in a filthy court at two o'clock in the morning, and found an Irishman very drunk, sitting with his wife and children on tubs and mugs, and without any table or chairs, round a fire, on which they were frying beef steaks and onions, which sent forth a most savory odour. This was another instance of a love of enjoyment at the expense of comfort, and any person, visiting the family in the day-time, would have had no doubt of their being in a state of destitution, an error into which medical men and benevolent ladies are very apt to fall, from not having opportunities of distinguishing between the real and the apparent, and from attributing the temporary effects they witness to unavoidable poverty, instead of to systematic improvidence. The consequence is, that, though the course they pursue administers present alleviation, it tends to permanent aggravation. In further illustration of the difference between real and apparent destitution, I will mention the following fact. An owner of small houses in the parish of Limehouse about a year ago sought before me to be excused from paying his rates, on the ground that he could get no rent from his tenants. I told him I had little doubt but that they spent in gin what they ought to pay him. He said he had no doubt of it too; and being asked why he did not distrain, he replied, there was no furniture in any of his tenements to distrain upon, but that the people, having gotten possession, spent their earnings in eating and drinking, and other indulgences, and set him at defiance. This is a numerous class in London, and a class which meets with great support from unthinking and mistaken benevolence. Indeed it may be taken as a rule, to which there are few exceptions, that where there is much apparent destitution, there is at least as much real misconduct and improvidence. All barefooted, shirtless beggars are vagabonds of the first class. Perhaps

an alteration in the law, by giving a sort of summary process of ejectment by magistrates in such cases as those in Limehouse, might operate as a salutary check to a practice detrimental to property, but still more so to morals,

It is to be observed, that where there is property without any recognised owner, or where the proprietors of small houses, from having other means, or from being wearied out, or from indolent benevolence, become negligent, improvidence, debasement, and apparent difficulty of living start into life like weeds and vermin amongst ruins, to the injury of all around. The want of cultivation and strict government will generate, even in the midst of wealth, poverty and all its appendages. If any street in London were to be abandoned by its owners, it would soon produce appearances and realities such as are described by Mr. Inglis, in spite of any system of poor laws that could be devised; whilst, on the other hand, with attention and efficient government, poor laws would ere long become a dead letter. Of this I am confident; and I apprehend there is no country in which legal provision is in reality less requisite than in Ireland. Notwithstanding the many disadvantages it at present labours under, it is, by the accounts of all, who have no end to answer by perverting the truth, in a state of rapid improvement, and only requires strict and impartial government to draw capital to its vast capabilities, sufficient for the employment of whatever surplus labour there may be. Nothing could be more withering to the brightening prospects of that hitherto ill-fated country, than the establishment of Mr. Inglis's false principle of forcing men to contribute, in the ratio of their abundance, to a mere palliative to present evils, at the expense of future independence. What Irish labourers can be, when thrown with sufficient stimulus upon their own resources, is manifested in the enterprize of the harvesters in seeking employment here, in their frugality of living, and in their care of their earnings. What they are under the influence of poor

laws, I can speak from six years' constant and ample experience; and I will add an extract in point from the preface to the second edition of my pamphlet on pauperism, published in 1831, and fully confirmed by subsequent observation.

"I will here observe of the Irish paupers that they are much more accomplished in their vocation than the English. They are more plausible and persevering, more cunning and deceitful, more skilled in turning the law to their advantage, and more ready to suffer privation for the sake of indulgence. This consideration, coupled with the inexperience of the administrators, makes me think that poor laws, however modified, would soon lead in Ireland even to greater evils than they have ever produced in this country. I should apprehend too, but this I advance with diffidence, that where the Catholic religion prevails, there would probably be an increased tendency to relax the administration, and most of all where there is a Catholic population under Protestant proprietors. The real point to be aimed at for the improvement of Ireland, or indeed of any country, is the raising the moral standard. Now, in my opinion, poor laws, by their very nature, have a directly contrary effect I think I cannot illustrate this better than by the following anecdote, which I once heard from a gentleman connected with Guy's Hospital. The founder left to the trustees a fund to be distributed to such of his relatives as should from time to time fall into distress. The fund at length became insufficient to meet the applications, and the trustees, thinking it hard to refuse any claimants, trenched upon the funds of the Hospital, the consequence of which was, as my informant stated, that, as long as the practice lasted, no Guy was ever known to prosper. So that if any individual could be wicked enough to wish the ruin of his posterity for ever, his surest means would be to leave his property in trust to be distributed to them only when in distress. Just so it has been with the legal provision for the poor in England. With slight variations, the fund

required has, from its institution, been continually increasing, and the progress of moral improvement has, in consequence, been greatly retarded.

"I will further remark with respect to Ireland, that I think periodical assessments, levied something in the same manner as the poor's rates here, and judiciously and impartially employed in public improvements, would be productive of unmixed advantage to the country. But if such a fund were suffered to be applied in any degree upon the specious principle of relieving the necessitous, instead of the sound one of purchasing labour in open market, I have no doubt but that it would ultimately be productive of far more evil than good.”

I will conclude this article with another extract from p. 22 of the same pamphlet, descriptive of the baneful effect of pauperism, or a dependence on legal provision, on the human mind, as a warning against its farther extension.

"The extent to which deceit and self-debasement enter into the composition of pauperism is quite inconceivable, except to those who have, as it were, anatomized the subject. The whole life of a pauper is a lie-his whole study imposition; he lives by appearing not to be able to live; he will throw himself out of work, aggravate disease, get into debt, live in wretchedness, persevere in the most irksome applications, nay, bring upon himself the incumbrance of a family, for no other purpose than to get his share from the parish. It is his constant aim to make every thing he has of as little value as possible; and he is consequently often obliged to throw away advantages, and to use those he keeps so as to be of little comfort to him. He necessarily becomes what he feigns to be, and drags after him, without remorse, his family and all within his influence. Such is the operation of the poor laws, that deceit and self-debasement, in various degrees, may be taken to be of the very essence of pauperism. Pique and spite are frequent causes of it, and are generally the worst cases to deal with; but deceit and debasement are

the means necessarily used to succeed. I have known a man who earned a guinea a week, because his brother would earn more, keep himself out of work for eight months, with occasional intervals, and during the time starve himself and his family on eight shillings a week from the parish; which he contrived to get by various impositions and persevering application. I knew another with a wife and family, who could earn sixteen shillings a week at out-door work, but because a fellow-workman received eighteen shillings, he went to weaving, at which he could only earn ten shillings, and got two shillings more from the parish. I have known cases of men procuring themselves and their families to be turned out of their houses, in order to compel the parish to find them residences, though they well knew they should suffer by the change. I knew a case of a woman, who having heard that a neighbour had had some shoes given to her children by the parish, swore she would have some too; and being refused, set off to the magistrate in a borrowed costume of misery, with all her children in rags, and before she arrived, concealed their shoes behind a hedge. Having told her tale of woe and oppression, and finally succeeded, she sold the parish shoes the next day for half their value, and squandered the money. Instances like the above, though of common occurrence, will generally escape detection, or, if the imposition is stated, it will hardly be credited-especially against the solemn and artful asseverations of the paupers themselves, who, having once made an application, it is a point of honour amongst them not to be foiled; as it is to get as much as others, who are in any thing like similar circumstances. Besides, they will designedly plunge themselves so deeply into distress, that there is no alternative but to help them out. I have frequently heard paupers use this phrase: I will throw myself upon you, and then you must relieve me.'

"In almost all cases, paupers have more than they choose to state, and perhaps from the way in which they receive it,