SECT. XVIII.] RESULTS OF THE INQUIRY. 283 



REMARKS. 



The Commissioners, in this section, again forget 

 that Ireland is Catholic, and that in Catholic 

 countries the natural guardian of the poor is the 

 curate, who is unmarried ; that, although the go- 

 vernment in Ireland does not allow him any aid 

 for his ministry, he will still be gratuitously guar- 

 dian of the poor ; and that if the Commissioners 

 succeed in their efforts, in making the parish pro- 

 duce more than it has hitherto produced, the poor 

 will have their quota of this surplus ; that the guar- 

 dians, receiving only money, excite murmurs and 

 inspire distrust, because the money realized goes 

 first to pay their own salaries ; that the curate never 

 asks for money, but at one person's house he asks 

 for vegetables or potatoes, at another for corn, at a 

 third house for fuel, clothing, etc., and of the richest 

 persons, soup. He never comes to the rich man with- 

 out asking for assistance, and never visits the poor 

 man without giving it ; and it is right that the dis- 

 tribution should be committed to him, since it is he 

 who imposes equally upon the poor and upon the 

 rich the strict exercises of religion and severe mo- 

 rality. But men brought up in England, Catholics 

 or Protestants, speak always of subjecting to legis- 

 lative interference that is to say, to force that 



