192 ON THE STATE OF IRELAND. [BOOK II. 



One witness (a labourer) said : " I consider that I would 

 be in greater want if I gave none away, than if I gave a 

 great deal away ; for I think that charity never shortens 

 quantity, and that what a man gives to beggars is a 

 gift to God : it is, as they say, to lay up for the day of 

 judgement." 



A clergyman stated that diseases are often spread by 

 lodging vagrants, particularly typhus fevers, itch, and 

 scrofula; that, independently of disease and immorality 

 thus disseminated, there is an irregularity and want of de- 

 cency that is calculated to injure the morals and habits 

 of the labouring classes. 



There is no instance of a vagrant passing a poor man's 

 door at meal-time without being invited to share the re- 

 past. He and his family enter and sit down to table, al- 

 most as a kind of right. The majority of those w r ho thus 

 practise hospitality do not know how they shall themselves 

 live the next day. 



There is no punishment inflicted for vagrancy. Rigor- 

 ous laws against vagrancy could never be enforced while 

 a possibility of a person starving existed. 



County of Mayo ; examinations taken by J. Spencer, Esq., and W. Gray, 

 Esq. ; parish of Aughavale, barony of Murrisk. Fourteen witnesses. 



The number of persons residing in the town who live 

 by begging may be estimated at one hundred. 



One witness states that vagrancy has advanced progress- 

 ively for the last ten years with increased rapidity during 

 the last five ; this is attributed, among other causes, chiefly 

 to the ruin of the linen trade. 



The greatest exertions are made by the labouring classes 

 to avoid begging ; but when once they lose caste, by having 



