240 A LIFE 'S WORK IN IRELAND. 



charged on 1 60 acres of good land, must be quite safe. 

 Arrangements could be made for large parties going 

 out together. If the offer is made known, and 

 facilities for embarking at tliis side are given, it is 

 likely a large emigration will follow, provided all are 

 convinced law and order will be enforced here, and 

 that those who stay at home must earn their living 

 by honest work. It has long appeared to me that, 

 if advances for emigi-ation were made personal debts 

 from the emigrants in any Colony, duly recoverable 

 in a safe and cheap way by Act of Colonial Parlia- 

 ment, with proper officers there to enforce payment 

 if not other^vise repaid, it would be a great advantage 

 to many honest poor people who wish to emigrate. 

 We are sure that most emigrants do well, and could 

 repay an advance easily by instalments. Why should 

 they not do so ? Some would be lost, perhaps, by 

 the emigrants passing into the States : such loss 

 might be borne ; the majority would repay. All the 

 class of able healthy boys and girls in our workhouses, 

 growing up and able to work, might thus be sent out, 

 to their great gain and our reKef. In our great town 

 workhouses with thousands of paupers, some such 

 resource is much wanted. The great workhouses in 

 the large towns, as Cork, Dublin, etc., are a grievous 

 evil, that never ought to have been allowed to grow up. 

 They are a disgrace to the Local Government Board, 

 and show how little sense prevails there. In Cork 

 there are over 2500 paupers in the workhouse. In 



