190 ON THE STATE OF IRELAND. [BOOK II 



CHAPTER VI. 



VAGRANCY AND MENDICITY. 



Province of Connaught, county of Galway ; examinations taken by F. 

 Diggens, Esq., and W. T. M'Cullagh, Esq.; parish of Headford, 

 barony of Clare* Sixteen witnesses- 



THERE are perhaps less vagrants and beggars in this pa- 

 rish than formerly, which is attributed to the compara- 

 tively few labourers in the county of Mayo who go to 

 England for work. The wives and children of those who 

 left home in search of work had no other resource during 

 their absence than to beg. 



The land is better tilled than it used to be, and produces 

 more, and there is more agricultural employment ; but this 

 increase is not sufficient to compensate for the fall in the 

 price of labour. " If," added one of the witnesses, " we 

 had not a good landlord, who gives an abatement in the 

 rent, we should be worse off than before ; the landlord of 

 a neighbouring district is a non-resident, and the labourers 

 obtain little or no employment, and their land pays very 

 high rent." 



Vagrants are more numerous after seed-time than at any 

 other time of the year, because at that time the men leave 

 home in search of work and the families go out to beg. 

 But in all these cases persons who are reduced to beg- 

 gary leave their own neighbourhood, and this it is which 

 makes the number of vagrants appear much larger. 



