TRANSACTIONS OP THE SECTIONS. 159 



1. That in Scotland, although the sums expended on the legal relief of the poor 

 have risen since the time when he first brought this subject before the public, from 

 ^140,000 to d€500,000 a-year, and the number of poor-houses from 4 to 62, 

 yet the whole number of persons requiring to be inmates of these asylums, in July 

 1853, i. e. eight years after the new poor law came into operation, was less than 

 6000 in a population of 2,800,000, one half of whom belong to parishes in which 

 poor-houses exist. 



2. That although the whole number applying for legal relief increased greatly, 

 as was to be expected, after the new law took effect, yet that number came to its 

 maximum as early as 1849, when the whole number of registered poor was 106,400, 

 and had declined to 99,600 in 1853, the latest year of which he had the return. 



3. That there is no indication of increase of profligacy or recklessness of conduct 

 during the operation of this improved law ; but on the contrary, in some large towns 

 of Scotland at least, of an improvement in the manners and habits of the people. 



4. That in Ireland, where the redundancy of population, fostered, as he believed, 

 by neglect and total want of legal provision prior to 1847 (when the existing poor- 

 law was passed), was such that the famine of 1848 had really been fatal to a con- 

 siderable portion of the population, we have as satisfactory evidence as could be 

 desired, that the condition and habits of the existing population have been improved, 

 notwithstanding that nearly one-eighth of them owed their lives to the legal pro- 

 vision ; and of these facts he offered the following proofs : — The First Annual Re- 

 port of the Commissioners, published in 1848, when the number relieved daily in 

 this way was not less than 1,000,000, after stating that " a very large proportion 

 of these were by these means, and by these only, daily preserved from death by 

 want of food," adds, as a "hopeful and satisfactory fact beyond all doubt or question," 

 that " the peasantry are showing that they are not disposed to rely either on chari- 

 table funds or poor-rates for their future subsistence." And the Eighth Annual 

 Report, published this year, after stating that the demand for agricultural labour 

 had improved universally throughout Ireland, and the usual rate of wages per day 

 had risen from 4d., 6d., or 8d., to Is. 6d., 2s., and 2s. 6d., no doubt in consequence 

 of the diminution of the population, adds, that "they have ascertained that between 

 1849 and 1854, considerably more than 200,000 young persons of both sexes have 

 left the workhouses in Ireland, and not returned to those asylums," notwithstanding 

 " that the workhouse dietaries are greatly in advance of the ordinary cabin diet ;" 

 that there are " visible signs of an improved condition of life in the appearance of 

 the peasantry in all parts of the country, more especially in their clothing;" and 

 further, as more recent reports published in the newspapers attest, that in Sep- 

 tember 1855, the Irish workhouses were "completely emptied of paupers capable 

 of doing any kind of work in the fields ;" that in the Union of Athlone at that time 

 only 452 paupers were receiving relief, where some few years ago there were above 

 6000 ; and that where the rates in some of the electoral divisions had been as high 

 as 8s. and 9s. in the pound, the highest in that Union for the next twelvemonth will 

 be 2s. 9d., and some as low as 4d. 



These facts, and along with them the total absence of any complaints of epidemic 

 fever, the author stated as evidence, — not that the former distress, and enormously 

 redundant population in Ireland, and in some parts of Scotland, where there had 

 been no poor-rates, and where fever had been most prevalent, had been owing 

 merely to that circumstance, — but that the introduction of poor-rates into a country 

 •where such indications of redundant population and destitution exist, while it 

 would afi"ord much more security to the poor, and lay the burden much more equi- 

 tably on the higher orders than any voluntary system of relief could do, would be 

 found no impediment to the operation of any such causes, whether dispensations of 

 Providence, or legislative regulations, as might improve their condition, moral and 

 physical, and foster independence of character among them. 



On an Improved Mode of Keeping Accounts in our National Establish- 

 ments. By Lady Bentham. 



