POPULATION POOR-LAWS LIFE-ASSURANCE. 



1846, it was 69,432, or about I in 38 ; in 1847, it 

 was 74,161, or about I in 35 '3. From 1864 to 

 1873, both years inclusive, the average number 

 for each year has been 77,324 ; but since 1869 a 

 steady decline has been perceptible, the number 

 of paupers in 1873 being 71,537, against 80,334 in 

 1869. These numbers do not include the casual 

 poor, whose ranks have become diminished to 

 a most remarkable extent during the last few 

 years. For the ten years ending with 1856, the 

 average number of casual poor was about 60,000 ; 

 but during the ten years ending with 1873, it had 

 sunk to 45,531. In 1868, the number was 53,831 ; 

 in 1873, it had fallen to 34,424, a number less than 

 in any year since 1847. The number of registered 

 poor relieved in every 100 of the population 

 during 1847 was 3'28, while in 1873 it was on ty 

 2*83. The number of casual poor relieved in 1847 

 was 2'3o per 100 of the population ; while in 1873 

 it had become decreased to ro2. The number of 

 lunatic poor, however, exhibits a marked increase, 

 the number in 1873 being 7590; in 1871, it was 

 7939 against 6587 in 1864. 



In August 1873, the number of poor-houses in 

 operation was 62, with accommodation for 14,375 

 inmates, the number in progress being 2. The 

 parishes engaged singly or in combination in 

 erecting and supporting these, number 410, having 

 a population of 2,434,173; but other parishes, to 

 the number of 207, with a population of 529,572, 

 avail themselves of the poor-houses by boarding 

 their paupers within them. Besides, in many 

 rural parishes there are poor-houses, so called, or 

 dwellings for infirm paupers, which are not tech- 

 nically regarded as such by the central board. 

 During the year 1873, the expenditure of 

 .873,075, xos. iod. was accounted for as follows : 

 Relief of registered poor, .634,936, 93. 4^d. ; 

 casual poor, ,18,598, 155. 5|d. ; medical relief, 

 .34,066, 75. yd. ; management, .108,577, os. 6|d. ; 

 litigation, ,5716, gs. lid. ; poor-house buildings, 

 .71,180, 75. lod. In the year ending May 1848, 

 the whole sum derived from church-door collec- 

 tions was ,14,898, 2s. 2d., of which ^8452, 135. 7|d. 

 was stated to have been expended for the 

 relief of the poor. In 1873, the amount was 

 ,26,217, i8s. iofd., of which sum ,10,608 was 

 actually applied to purposes of poor-relief. These 

 funds are generally employed to afford aid to 

 persons who have fallen into temporary diffi- 

 culties, with a view to prevent them from becom- 

 ing chargeable to the parish as paupers ; and it is 

 probable that few of the persons so assisted have 

 also been chargeable to the funds raised by 

 assessment. 



IRISH POOR-LAWS. 



In Ireland there was, till a recent period, no 

 systematic provision for the poor, but the country 

 was by no means destitute of institutions designed 

 for their benefit. Legislative enactments had pro- 

 gressively, during the last century, established 

 county infirmaries, dispensaries, lunatic asylums, 

 houses of industry, and receptacles for destitute 

 infants and old people ; and similar institutions, 

 together with schools, lying-in hospitals, houses of 

 refuge, and mendicity houses, had been set on 

 foot in various places by private benevolence. 

 But while much was thus done for the alleviation 

 of temporary and casual distress, there was a 



mass of mendicancy, and an amount of general 

 suffering from occasional famine, and consequent 

 epidemics, which made Ireland singular among 

 the countries of Europe. It was calculated that, 

 out of a population of between seven and eight 

 millions, upwards of two millions were in a state 

 not much short of- permanent mendicancy. The 

 great bulk of the people being an agricultural 

 peasantry, living on small patches of land, and 

 depending mainly on the potato-crop, a failure of 

 that product was attended with wide-spread 

 misery, invariably followed by most destructive 

 fevers. The epidemic of 1817, which was the 

 effect of the failure of the crop of 1816, affected 

 a million and a half of persons, and carried off 

 65,000. The people, moreover, having no re- 

 source but their little patches of potato-ground,, 

 landlords found that they were rapidly losing all 

 power over their property. Desperation made 

 the tenants cling to their ground with a perti- 

 nacity which nothing could overcome. A common 

 danger having united them in one common cause, 

 the forcible extrusion of a tenant was resisted by 

 one and all, or, if effected, it was sure to be 

 savagely avenged. Practically, the tenant was 

 able to remain on the ground as long as he chose, 

 without much regard to the payment of rent, 

 unless his good-will was purchased either by the 

 new tenant or by the landlord. The incon- 

 veniences experienced in consequence of the bulk 

 of the people being thus always on the verge of 

 destitution, and without any resource when they 

 reached that point, had become, in addition to 

 those of actual mendicancy, so grievous, that 

 a poor-law began to be contemplated as necessary 

 for Ireland; and in 1833, a royal commission was 

 issued for an inquiry into the subject. 



In consequence of the Report made by the com- 

 missioners, a kind of modified poor-law was intro- 

 duced into Ireland, the principal arrangements 

 being somewhat similar to those which had just 

 been adopted in England, and the general super- 

 intendence being confided to the same commis- 

 sioners. But the Irish system of poor-relief 

 differed in one respect from the systems in force 

 in England and Scotland, the relief being ad- 

 ministered solely in workhouses. Again, the 

 legal right which destitute or infirm persons in 

 England and Scotland had to relief was not 

 recognised in Ireland. The destitute, under this 

 law, might be relieved, but they could not insist 

 upon it as a right. Under this singularly in- 

 effective law, which has of late years undergone 

 several important modifications, the expenditure 

 for the poor in Ireland, for the year ending ist 

 January 1846, was only 316,026, and the number 

 of paupers receiving indoor relief, 43,293. 



In 1846 occurred the great potato-blight, which 

 almost annihilated that crop for the season, and 

 has recurred with more or less destructiveness 

 each successive season since the recurrence for 

 the year 1848 having been the severest, and 

 having a second time struck the country with 

 famine. Many people died of starvation, and 

 a still greater number from diseases engendered 

 by feebleness of constitution and unwholesome 

 food. Crowds also emigrated to America, aided 

 partly by funds supplied from the poor-rate and 

 from public subscription, and largely also by 

 funds sent home for the purpose by relatives 

 already emigrated and settled in that country. 



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