POOR LAWS FOR IRELAND. 



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the subject, and is, moreover, supported by the highest possible au- 

 thority in a case of the kind, to wit, the Third Emigration Report. 

 That Report says, " The inevitable consequence of the spontaneous 

 emigration of the Irish is to deluge Great Britain with poverty, and 

 gradually, but certainly, to equalize the state of the English and 

 Irish peasantry." Such opinion, coming from such authority, ought 

 to arouse the government if it has any wish to avert a calamity of so 

 frightful a magnitude as that here anticipated. 



There never yet was a measure of justice or utility proposed, but 

 it was met by some objections. The introduction of Poor Laws into 

 Ireland is no exception to the rule. The objections urged against 

 such introduction are manifold, but they are feeble. The strongest 

 of them may be demolished in a moment. 



It is said that numerous gross abuses are connected with the V nglish 

 Poor Laws, and therefore that no legal provision should be made for 

 the Irish poor. We admi* the premises ; but it does not follow that 

 we must adopt the conclusion which some draw from them. If we 

 were to argue from the abuse to the disuse of things, there is no say- 

 ing where we would stop , all things, every institution under heaven, 

 are abused more or less. Great and manifold abuses are mixed up 

 with our courts of justice ; but he would be a strange sort of logician 

 who would reason from thence that it were better altogether to abo- 

 lish such courts. Men often abuse their liberty, and commit assaults, 

 robbery, murder; but no one has yet ventured to maintain that we 

 ought for that reason to be deprived of our freedom. Some men are 

 guilty of arson, others drown themselves ; but we have yet to learn 

 that there would be wisdom in a measure which should, therefore, 

 deny us the use of fire or water. If there be abuses connected with 

 the English Poor Laws, and if these are so manifest as to be observed 

 by the most short-sighted, it follows that, in forming a system of 

 Poor Laws for Ireland, those abuses can be the more easily 

 guarded against. Perfection is a virtue which is not to be found in 

 any thing btlow ; but there have been plans proposed for making a 

 legal provision for the poor of Ireland, which would be an effectual 

 security against many of those abuses complained of in the case of 

 England. Mr. O'Brien and Mr. Grattan severally proposed bills 

 to parliament a few years since which were decidedly excellent. The 

 late Dr. Doyle was of the same opinion, and he was no mean authority. 



It is said there is something repulsive to the feelings of paupers 

 themselves to a poor house. No doubt there is ; but then the poor 

 meet with many things repulsive to their feelings. The taunts and 

 cavalier treatment they receive from the aristocrat down to the hard- 

 hearted menial, when asking a pittance to keep body and soul toge- 

 ther, are among the number. We take it that a poor house cannot 

 be more repulsive to their feelings than this. If it be, it surely can- 

 not be more repulsive or more dreaded than perishing ot want — than 

 lying down to die like dogs. The best proof that it is not will be 

 found in the fact of their accepting the relief thus provided. 



But it is quite a possible thing to make a legal provision for the 

 poor without having workhouses at all. And no person, we are sure, 

 who knows any thing of Ireland, ever proposed to erect workhouses 



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