Note 10 — IRELAND—ITS CONDITION—THE LIFE AND PROPERTY BILL—THE DEBATE, AND THE FAMINE. (continued 2)

The Appendix to the 10th Report affords some curious and important information as to the classes in which destitution is to be found. The commissioners directed the clerks of the unions to furnish them with lists of the severest cases of destitution which were relieved in the different houses, and the occupations which they had previously followed, and accordingly 870 cases are given in the Appendix by them. It appears the number of males above fifteen years of age relieved in the quarter ending 9th April 1844, was only 11,224.

Of Peasants.Of Servants.Of Mendicants.

Male labourers,4599Male servants,585Male,1473

Female,924Female,4653Female,3745

—— —— ——

Total,5523Total,5238Total,5218

Of farmers who had held, or were still in occupation of land, 79

Thus we see, that the number of servants and vagrants requiring relief, amounted to within three hundred of the numbers of the agricultural labourers, and that the number of those connected with the possession of land, and who had sought relief on account of termination of leases, non-payment of rent, expulsion because they were tenants-at-will, or temporary distress, amounted to the incredibly small number of seventy-nine.

We ought also to add, that in every instance in which a labouring man is stated in those reports to have entered the houses in a state of ill health, he was discharged at his own request when his health had been re-established. How are the assertions which we hear made every day to be reconciled with facts such as those?