142 ON THE STATE OP IRELAND. [BOOK II. 



merly, when the funds of the Cork Hospital were very 

 considerable, there was no objection to receiving children 

 from different parts of the country. Every child which 

 was exposed in Bandon was in consequence sent to Cork, 

 and the woman who brought it generally took a letter to 

 the churchwarden of some parish there, who sent the child 

 to the hospital. When, in consequence of the diminu- 

 tion of the funds of the hospital, a regulation was made 

 that no foundling should be received but those of Cork 

 and the Liberties, the parochial authorities of Bandon 

 had recourse to the following expedient to save their 

 parishes from the burden of supporting the foundlings. 

 Each child, as soon as possible after being discovered, 

 was given in charge to a woman named Rebecca Clarke, 

 who was understood to take it to Cork and get it into the 

 hospital; she received 10s. for each child. It appears 

 that this system still continues. Mrs. Clarke, on being 

 examined, stated, that her mode of getting a child into the 

 hospital is to expose it in Cork, either at the gate of the 

 hospital or in some gentleman's hall. The child then, of 

 course, becomes a foundling of the parish in which it is 

 thus exposed, and it is sent by the churchwarden of that 

 parish to the hospital. Within a fortnight from the pre- 

 sent time (October 2nd, 1834), Mrs. Clarke has exposed 

 a child in this way ; she says that, although she has been 

 going on thus for years, she was but once detected, and 

 then she could not be punished, as she was not caught in 

 the fact. 



This account of the way in which the children were 

 disposed of, after they left Bandon, rests on the authority 

 of Mrs. Clarke alone. The foundling-overseers knew or 

 know nothing more than that she got the children and 



