566 Population of Great Britain and Ireland [[DEC 



shillings; and it is in evidence that Associations are actually formed, and 

 in operation in Ireland, for the purpose of sending over the surplus popu- 

 lation of that country into Scotland and England. The Mendicity 

 Society of London states by its Report, that the number of applications 

 to them for relief from Irish paupers have been, up to only the 3]st of May in 

 the present year, 4,056 ; the amount of the applications in the whole of 

 the last year being only 2,994. And the evidence of Hr. Elmore, of Cork 

 (which we quote here for the purpose, a little out of its regular place), puts 

 an end to any surprise which such an increase of demand might produce; 

 for it avows the direct course, by which the augmentation has been 

 effected. 



" Q. 4399. What are you? I was very largely engaged in the manufacture of 

 coarse linens and cottons. 



" 4400. Where ?-In Clonakilty, twenty five miles south-west of Cork. 



" 4412. Can you inform the Committee of any circumstances connected with a 

 subscription for the removal of any paupers in the neighbourhood of Cork, to any 

 part of this country ? In the year 1826, from the immense falling cfi'of the linen 

 manufacture introduced in the neighbourhood of Clonakilty, where nearly one 

 thousand looms were employed those linens were met in the market by a better 

 quality of linen made by steam machinery, here and in Scotland ; and theresult has 

 been that business declined it was impossible that, working without machinery, 

 even at the lowest rate, competition could be maintained. I say at the very lowest 

 rate ; women and children working twelve hours a day for 2d. or 3d. ; weavers 

 working the same number of hou;s could only earn from 8d. to lOd ; even at that 

 modicum, their production could not compete with the production of the steam- 

 power. The result is, that the business has been entirely destroyed, or compara- 

 tively so; that out of one thousand looms employed, there are not now more than 

 thirty or forty. During the latter part of the last year, and the whole of this, the 

 poor weavers must have been supported by voluntary contributions. Finding it 

 impossible to continue that longer, it was conceived by a committee, formed at 

 Clonakilty, that it would be proper to enter into subscriptions to send them ove to 

 Manchester to seek employment ; an r \ fearing that, by sending them in large q-an- 

 tities, they might be 'i eturned, the mode pursued was to send them over by forties, 

 giving them money to pay their way, and support them a few days in Man- 

 chester." 



The generally degraded condition of the Irish population -with the 

 numberless causes more or less tending to that degradation as detailed by 

 the witnesses, from Ireland generally, would require a greater extent of 

 extract to make it fully intelligible to our readers, than the limits of a 

 periodical can afford. From the mass of evidence, however, before us, we 

 shall select a few passages ; carefully, however, avoiding relations of par- 

 ticular cases of distress, arid quoting only those statements which apply to 

 the condition of whole classes, or at least of very large bodies, of the 

 people. 



The first witness is Mr. Hugh Dixon,of Westmeath, who gives the following 

 answers to some of the questions of the Committee : 



" Q. 2470. Are you a land-agent in the county of Westmeath ? I am. 



" 2471. Is there a great deal of poverty among the peasantry in that part of the 

 country ? Indeed there is. 



" 2481. What are the wages of labour in that part of the country ? A labourer 

 is well contented if he gets what is called constant work with a gentleman in the 

 country, at eig ' t-pcnce a-day one part of t>te rear, and ten pence the other 

 Irish ; that is, about ninepence-halfpenny for one, and sevenpence-halfpenny for 

 the other half. He never complains. 



" 2483 Will you state any of those classes with regard to whom more distress 

 is found to exist? [The witness describes, in the course of several answers, the 

 condition of the *' under tenantry" or tenants who hold of the landlord^ tenantry, 



