SECT. I.] 



RESULTS OF THE INQUIRY. 



219 



are insufficiently provided at any time with the com- 

 monest necessaries of life. 



Their habitations are wretched hovels ; several of a fa- 

 mily sleep together upon straw or upon the bare ground, 

 sometimes with a blanket, sometimes even without so 

 much to cover them ; their food commonly consists of 

 dry potatoes, and with these they are at times so scantily 

 supplied as to be obliged to stint themselves to one spare 

 meal in the day. There are even instances of persons 

 being driven by hunger to seek sustenance in wild herbs. 

 They sometimes get a herring or a little milk, but never 

 meat, except at Christmas, Easter and Shrovetide. 



Some go in search of employment to Great Britain 

 during the harvest, others wander through Ireland with 

 the same view. 



The wives and children of many are occasionally obliged to 

 beg ; they do so reluctantly, and with shame, and in gene- 

 ral go to a distance from home that they may not be known. 



Mendicancy, too, is the sole resource of the aged and 

 impotent of the poorer classes in general, when children 

 or relatives are unable to support them. To it therefore 

 crowds are driven for the means of existence, and the 

 knowledge that such is the fact leads to an indiscriminate 

 giving of alms, which encourages idleness, imposture, and 

 general crime. 



With these facts before us, we cannot hesitate to state 

 that we consider remedial measures requisite to ameliorate 

 the condition of the Irish poor. 



What these measures should be is a question compli- 

 cated, and involving considerations of the deepest import- 

 ice to the whole body of the people both in Ireland and 

 Great Britain. Society is so constructed, its various parts 

 are so connected, the interests of all who compose it are 



