TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 95 



afifected are fevers, inflammation of the bowels, dysentery and consumption. In ge- 

 neral the men die very quietly and composedly, resigning themselves with little ap- 

 parent reluctance to their fate, and receiving and applying, even the worst of them, 

 to their own case the consolations of religion with little apparent doubt or hesitation. 

 Thirty men have been killed on the island accidentally ; seven have been murdered ; 

 nineteen have been executed, of whom thirteen were in the mutiny in 1834; seven- 

 teen were killed in resisting lawful authority ; and two committed suicide. On the 

 1st of September 1843 there were 796 prisoners on the island, of which 447 were 

 Protestants, 344 Roman Catholics, and 5 were Jews : almost two-thirds of these 

 prisoners had been above ten years on the island. The proportion of married men, 

 and conseqnently of suffering families, was above a fifth. The number who could 

 read was 546 ; could not read, 260 ; could write, 403 ; could not write, 393. Capt. 

 M'Conochie observed that prisoners are not generally ignorant of the first elements of 

 education, but the degree in which they possess them is low. Among the men who 

 could read and write not above a dozen were competent to act as clerks. He remarks, 

 that the young English prisoners who are distinguished on the island for any degree 

 of superior education to their fellows, are not less remarkable for their indifference to 

 their religious duties and careless reception of religious instruction. 



Notes on the Reports of the Poor Lam Commissioners on the State of the Poor 

 in Scotland. By W. P. Alison, M.D. 



He had at a previous meeting of the Association laid before the Section a variety 

 of facts relative to the state of the poor in Scotland, and he proposed now to show 

 that the evidence taken before the Poor Law Commissioners fully supported his former 

 statements. In one point he differed from the commissioners. He asserted that one 

 of the results of the present system was that large towns were burthened beyond their 

 fair share with the indigent poor; in general onl}' one-third of those on the poor-roll 

 are natives of the towns in which they are relieved, and two-thirds are immigrants. 

 The commissioners in their report stated that this evil had been exaggerated. He 

 differed from the commissioners in that opinion, and asserted that the number of able- 

 bodied persons who flock into the towns in search of work, and other classes, which 

 he enumerated, of destitute poor not admitted as paupers, do produce an excessive 

 burden, which. under a better system of poor-law management would not prevail. 

 He then proceeded to cite extracts from the evidence taken before the commissioners, 

 which exhibited the great extent of misery consequent on the difficulty of obtaining 

 parish aid in Scotland. Those for whom legal relief is extended are only the aged and 

 the infirm ; to them the amount of relief is inadequate to maintain life, and they have- 

 to resort in part, as a means of subsistence, to begging, which leads to lying and stealing. 

 An aged disabled person is allowed only from 9d. to 1 s. a week ; widows left with fami- 

 lies are allowed 6d. each child, with nothing for herself, — in one parish in Edinburgh 

 which was mentioned, the usual allowance is only 4rf. for each child and nothing for the 

 mother. Consequently the indigent poor are in the greatest misery, and are to a large 

 extent dependent upon the sympathy of their poor neighbours. In some parts of Scot- 

 land the poor are probably in a worse condition than in Ireland. Mendicancy is 

 allowed in many parts, especially on Saturdays. Many families in Edinburgh are 

 existing in rooms without furniture, and instances were given of numbers who were 

 kept from church on the sabbath for want of clothing in which to appear. It was also 

 in evidence that numbers of persons who are suffering these privations are of good 

 character. Scotland has long been afflicted by an epidemic fever, which has been spread 

 through the country by contagion from vagrants and stranger beggars ; and of late a 

 new epidemic has appeared, distinct from any other similar malady ; its peculiarities 

 are that it reaches the crisis on the seventh day, and those who survive it are subject 

 to a relapse on the fifteenth day ; in the worst cases the complexion becomes yellow, 

 and it was first mistaken by the medical profession for jaundice. Dr. Alison has caused 

 inquiry to be made into 1 700 cases of this fever, two-thirds of which were found to 

 be among the destitute and unemployed poor. Fifty per cent, of the poor buried 

 at the public expense in Glasgow in 1843 were of fever. Under the present system 

 of poor law the orphan children are deemed capable of maintaining themselves at 

 fourteen years, and are then thrown on the world. Previously they are boarded 



