nance of the poor. In the southern counties the 

 oppression is almost intolerable, the application of 

 the labour rate has produced a degree of tem- 

 porary relief, but it must be a long time before the 

 real evils of pauperism, which have been in- 

 duced by the want of employment and inade- 

 quate wages, and from a long course of mistreat- 

 ment, can, in any great degree, be mitigated, much 

 less eradicated. In the midland and northern 

 counties though the poor rate is higher than for- 

 merly, and forms a heavy outgoing, it is far less 

 onerous than in the southern counties. There 

 appears no immediate likelihood of any extensive 

 and general reduction taking place, even if a better 

 system of administration be adopted, aad a some- 

 what greater demand for labour arise ; with an 

 increasing population, and, consequently, a greater 

 number requiring assistance as widows and 

 orphans, and from bodily infirmity ; and it is 

 these incapacitating natural causes which in the 

 midland and northern counties absorb the greater 

 portion of the fund levied for the maintenance of 

 the poor, and the poor, in such unhappy circum- 

 stances, are constrained to seek the aid of a pro- 

 vision not supplied by the warm sympathies of 

 charity, but by the cold restraint of law. In these 

 counties the agricultural population is not more 

 than might be employed, beneficially to the farmer 

 if farming capital received its " fair return." The 

 introduction of an improved system of road mend- 

 ing and making, at a time when the supply of 



