Chapter XIII · (continued 2)
Reading edition
At this time there were thirty-three Commissariat depôts, and sixteen British Association depôts.
By circular No. 58 it was announced that after the 15th of August the support of destitute persons was to be provided for under the new Poor Law, 10 Vic., c. 31. All relief committees were warned to be prepared to close their arrangements for the issue of rations, when the funds provided for the estimates, ending on the 13th of August, would be expended.
The hope expressed in the fourth report, that the Commissioners had arrived at the maximum daily relief which the country required, was not verified by fact. The fifth report was published on the 17th of August. At that date there were 1,826 electoral divisions under the Act. The maximum relief within the period embraced in the report was: Gratuitous rations per day, 2,920,792; sold, 99,920; total, 3,020,712 rations daily![266] Thus, considerably more than one-third of the whole population was living on what may be termed out-door relief. This, the highest point, was reached on the 3rd of July; the daily rations had, on the 1st of August, come down to 2,467,989 gratuitous, and 52,387 sold rations, being a total of 2,520,376 rations.
The absolute termination of advances on account of temporary relief was fixed by the Act of Parliament for the end of September. The number of temporary fever hospitals established under the Act 10 Vic., c. 22, amounted at the date of the fifth report to 326.
The Relief Commissioners published their sixth report on the 11th of September. It was a hopeful one. The crops were abundant, and a rapid decrease in the number of rations issued was the result, more especially from the middle of August. Out of 127 Unions, which were under the Act, fifty-five had had no advances made to them, on estimate, for any period after the 15th of August; twenty-six more ceased to call for advances on the 29th of August; and the remainder were to cease on the 12th of September, with the exception of the advances to the fever hospitals, which were continued to the 30th of September.
The Commissioners expressed the opinion that the discontinuance of relief had not been attended by the suffering which might have been apprehended. They say the relief "was made a system of bonus rather than of necessity, which increased the expenditure in an enormous degree."
We learn from this sixth report that the Commissioners had expended a sum approaching £2,000.000 within a period of eight months, through the agency of upwards of two thousand committees, constituted by general regulation, and subject only to a very general control. Such being the case, the testimony borne by the inspecting officers to those committees, is highly creditable to them; the inspecting officers, says the report, "express their belief that there has been almost a total absence of misappropriation of money by committees."
On the 28th of August the number of daily rations issued was down to 967,575.
The seventh and last report of the Commissioners under the Relief Act, bears date the 15th of October. In it they say, they have the satisfaction of believing, that the Act was thoroughly successful in its primary object; and they did not consider the expenditure excessive in proportion to the object. The entire outlay under the Act was £1,676,268 11s. 7d.,[267] a part of which was a free gift from the State, the remainder a charge to be repaid by the Unions, by a percentage on the rateable property, which, in the opinion of the Commissioners, should in no case exceed three shillings in the pound. The summary of the accounts department informs us that the rations issued on the 11th of September, the day previous to the final stoppage of relief under the Act, were 442,739, being a decrease from the 28th of August of 599,816 daily rations.
The expenditure under the Act is thus detailed:—
To Sir R. Routh for provisions from depôts £136,795 0 8
Money advanced fortnightly to the several electoral divisions for relief £1,420,417 14 11
To fever hospitals £119,055 16 0
The advances at one time exceeded £60,000 a-day, distributed over nearly two thousand accounts.
The sum given to Sir R. Routh for the food in the depôts shows there were about twelve thousand tons of provisions in them.
The sum set down to the fever hospitals includes the erection and furnishing of the fever sheds. In addition to this amount, £4,479 was expended in providing proper medical inspection and superintendance in localities in which great sickness prevailed, and £60,000 was advanced for the enlargement of the Workhouses, principally by the erection of fever wards.[268]
In the appendix to this, their last report, the Commissioners bear honourable testimony to the manner in which the people behaved. They say: "The order and good conduct of the peasantry, and of the people generally, notwithstanding the great influx of paupers into the towns, is highly to be commended. All admit, that the resignation and forbearance of the labouring classes was astonishing, when it is remembered with what rapidity the real famine encompassed them."
FOOTNOTES:
1st Cook—Round about the boiler go, In twice fifty gallons throw— Water that in noisome tank Mossed with verdure rich and rank. 2nd Cook—Shin of beef from skinny cow In the boiler then you'll throw; Onion sliced and turnip top, Crumb of bread and cabbage chop. 3rd Cook—Scale of cod fish, spiders' tongues, Tomtits' gizzards, head and lungs Of a famished, French-fed frog, Root of phaytee digged in bog, etc.
It is only just to M. Soyer to say that his soup kitchen was regarded by good judges as a clever and convenient contrivance for its purpose. The building in which it was placed was constructed of wood, and was about forty feet by twenty. It consisted of one apartment. In the centre was a large steam boiler mounted on wheels, and arranged around were a number of metallic box-shaped vessels, also mounted on wheels, in which the materials for the soup were placed. These were heated by steam conveyed by iron pipes from the central boiler, and by a slow digestive process the entire of the nutriment contained in the materials were supposed to be extracted without having its properties deteriorated. When the soup was ready, the recipients were admitted by a narrow entrance at one side of the house, one by one, each receiving a large bowl of soup, and, having drank it, [five minutes was the time allowed for drinking it,] they received an allowance of bread or a biscuit, and were dismissed by another door in the rere of the building. In this manner M. Soyer calculated he would be able to give one meal every day to at least five thousand persons, from an establishment the size of the one at the Royal Barracks. At the entrance, in the centre, was the weighing machine. There was what was called a glaze-pan over the steam boiler capable of holding three hundred gallons, and, at the end, an oven to bake one hundred weight of bread at a time, and all heated by the same fire. Round the two supports of the roof were circular tin boxes for the condiments. Seven feet from the ground at each corner was placed a safe five feet square and seven feet high, with sides of wire for ventilation, which contained respectively meat, vegetables, grain, and condiments. At the same elevation as the safes were sixteen butts, containing seventeen hundred and ninety-two gallons of water.
1,576,000 acres of flat bog;
1,254,000 acres of mountain top bog;
2,070,000 acres of convertible mountain bog.
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4,900,000 acres in all.
"Some persons recommend emigration as a panacea for the distress in Ireland—that is, in plain English, to send the bone and sinew of our country to cultivate foreign lands, when countless acres are at their doors untilled, undrained, and therefore unremunerative."—The Case of Ireland: in two letters to the Right Hon. Henry Labouchere, Chief Secretary for Ireland. By the Rev. Wm. Prior Moore, A.M., Cavan. Dublin: Wm. Curry and Co., 1847.