REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS. 7 



I. As to the difficulties of the Inquiry. 



The great proportion of the population about and amongst 

 whom the inquiry was to be made, is constantly fluctuating 

 between mendicancy and independent labour. In whole 

 districts, scarcely one of that class of substantial capitalist 

 farmers, so universal in England, can be found. The small 

 resident gentry are but few, and the substantial tradesman 

 is not to be met with at intervals of two or three miles as 

 in England ; for there are but few towns of sufficient trade 

 to create such a class. The clergy of the various persua- 

 sions, and the proprietors, when resident, are, in many 

 cases, so much at variance with each other, or with the 

 working population, upon political questions, that great 

 caution was requisite in regard to the manner and degree 

 in which we could avail ourselves of their assistance. Si- 

 milar difficulties existed with regard to the constabulary, 

 from the frequent collision in which they are placed with 

 the people ; and parochial authorities can scarcely be said 

 to exist. 



In an inquiry about a population, in which many of the 

 ordinary distinctions of society are commonly merged in 

 the same individual, and in an inquiry amongst a people, 

 the various classes of whom had long been at variance with 

 each other, it became a matter of fearful moment to deter- 

 mine respecting whom the inquiry should be made, and 

 from whom testimony could be received which would not 

 merely be impartial, but which would be admitted by all 

 to be so ; the one requisite being as important as the other. 

 We became quickly and painfully alive to the danger which 

 would attend the slightest error in our procedure. Did we 

 appear to rely too much on the clergy or laity of any one 



