RELIEF OF THE POOR. 319 



grants. This is the state of Ireland at the present mo- 

 ment. On the most moderate computation, the amount 

 of spontaneous alms given in that part of the United 

 Kingdom, chiefly by the smaller farmers and cottiers, is 

 from 1,000,000/. to 2,000,000/. sterling annually; but be- 

 ing given without system, or without inquiry, to the good 

 and the bad, the really destitute and the pretenders to 

 destitution receive alike their maintenance out of the earn- 

 ings of the industrious, to their great impoverishment, 

 and to the great injury of the morals and good order of 

 the kingdom. 



III. Because the most direct and effectual, if not the 

 only means of avoiding these two great evils, namely, an 

 extensive and ruinous pauperism, created by an attempt 

 to make compulsory provision for all cases of destitution, 

 and an extensive and equally ruinous vagrancy, created 

 by the want of a public provision, is to endeavour to bring 

 voluntary alms-giving under regulations and system, so as 

 to direct it to the relief of real distress exclusively. 



IV. Because, if this be not effected, if voluntary charity 

 be altogether left out of view in any public provision for 

 the poor, those who regard it as a religious duty to relieve 

 the poor, and who find enjoyment in the exercise of such 

 charity, will continue to give without discrimination or 

 system, and thus render it impossible to put a stop to 

 vagrancy. Even the profuse provisions made for the poor 

 by the English Poor Law did not prevent the formation 

 of a multitude of voluntary associations for charitable pur- 

 poses, many of which impaired the industry of the people, 

 and increased among them the indolent and dependent 

 spirit of paupers. 



V. Because the best means of systematizing and regu- 



