360 POOR LAWS FOR IRELAND. 



in that country. A certain weekly allowance can be given to those 

 who are in extreme want and unable to work, without taking them 

 from their own hovels. This is done in Scotland, in the case of 

 those who get relief from their respective parishes. 



It is objected that, in the eventof a legal provision being made for 

 the poor of Ireland, parents will be abandoned by their children. 

 Dr. Doyle in part answers this objection when he asks, " Will the 

 son or daughter-in-law be less kind or courteous to the aged mother, 

 because the elders of her parish, the witnesses of her well-spent years, 

 may think fit annually to bestow on her a suit of clothing, or afford 

 her some comfort in the decline of life?" It may be added — How 

 many parents are there who have no children to support them ? how 

 many have children who are unable to afford them any support? And, 

 lastly, how many there are whose children need to be supported 

 themselves ? 



The only other objection worthy of being noticed, is — that poor 

 men confiding in the legal provision to be made for them in old age, 

 will be improvident in their youth, and spend in the ale-house what 

 they are now careful to save. The answers are, first, that such is 

 not the fact in England where Poor Laws exist; for there, in the 

 vast majority of cases, every poor man who can afford it is careful 

 to make provision for old age by joining Benefit Societies. Se- 

 cond — it is impossible for those to be prudent, and this is the case 

 with the Irish poor, who never had any thing to lay up against the in- 

 firmities of old age. They have barely as much as preserves the 

 vital principle within them. 



The urgent necessity which exists for the introduction of a system 

 of Poor Laws into Ireland will, we trust, induce the Government to 

 make their intended measure one, on the carrying of which, they will 

 be willing to stake their existence as an Administration. The know- 

 ledge of this determination will do much more to disarm the hos- 

 tility of those opposed to a legal provision for the poor of Ireland 

 than all the arguments grounded on justice, humanity, and sound 

 policy, which they will be able to urge in favour of such a measure, 



J. G. 



