Condition of the poorer classes in Ireland: remarks by G. C. Lewis on the third report

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ON POOR LAWS, IRELAND. 
19 these two operations alone, though they are stated in a few words, are of immense magnitude, and the latter of great difficulty. 
There is the habit of administering a poor Law to be created, and a knowledge of the subject to be diffused among the different functionaries employed by the Commissioners, and among the different Boards of Guardians. 
There are also numerous public institutions to be built, and rules to be framed for their governance. 
A system of emigration is also to be devised and established, in connexion with the Colonial Office, "and some of the colonial authorities. 
All these duties are to be performed in the midst of the utmost party violence, and in the face of every kind of jealousy, mistrust, and calumny: landlords struggling with tenants, Protestants with Catholics, the people habitually hating the law, and justly suspecting its administrators. 
Everybody who considers the present unsettled state of Ireland, with respect to some of the great political ques¬ tions which affect it, must admit that, even if the distress of the people was less gene¬ ral and intense than it is, the new Poor Law Commissioners would have a most arduous task to perform, and that it is desirable to encumber them with as few, not strictly necessary, functions as possible. 
Now, we will see how far this caution has been observed in the recommendations Large number of of the Report. 
institutions recom-In the first place, the number of Institutions placed under their care is multiplied 

men e ' 

beyond any reasonable limit. 
They are as follows:— 1 .—Emigration 
depots. 
2.—Penitentiaries 
for vagrants. 
3.—Asylums 
for lunatics and idiots, and for the deaf and dumb and blind poor (s. 
19). 

The number of 1hcso three classes of Institutions is to be fixed by the Poor Law Commissioners. 
4.—Institutions 
for cripples and persons afflicted with epilepsy or other perma¬ nent diseases. 
5.—Infirmaries, 
hospitals, and convalescent establishments. 
6.—Dispensaries 
(s. 
20). 
Each district is to contain one of the institutions numbered 4 and 5, and several dispensaries if necessary. 
7.—Mendicity 
houses and almshouses (s. 
27.) 
one in each district. 
(?) 
8.—Institutions 
in the Colonies for receiving foundling and orphan children, and for training and apprenticing them to useful trades or occupations; to be sup¬ ported by local assessment in Ireland (s. 
36). 
It thus appears that there arc to be no fewer than eight classes of public institu¬ tions, under the control of the Irish Poor Law Commissioners. 
So large a number is sufficient to distract attention and to render control difficult, even where there are no other subjects to be attended to. 
It is remarkable that this long list of institu¬ tions shoukCafter all, exclude the workhouse, the most important of all: and that the Commissioners should propose to establish so many institutions, when they object to a workhouse on the ground of the difficulty of keeping order in it. 
" We must add," (they say,) <l that if workhouses were established, and that want should send some of the labouring classes into them, we are satisfied. 
that they would no sooner be there than the strict discipline which, as in England, it would be needful to enforce—separation of families, and so forth—would produce resistance; that tumults would ensue; and that after much trouble, expense, and mischief, the system would necessarily be abandoned altogether." 
(s. 
2.) 
As to the possibility of maintaining order in an Irish workhouse, I shall say something presently; here I will only remark, that I can conceive no kind of institution more liable to tumult and disorder than the emigration depots proposed " in the Report; large receptacles, crowded with persons of all sexes and ages, from different parts of tlie country, some waiting during an uncertain period for the ships which arc to take them to a colony, others not yet examined as to their fitness for emigration, and others to be passed back to their parishes as unfit. 
In addition to the supervision of these multifarious institutions, the Commissioners other duties of the are moreover to perform other duties. 
-By s. 
35, the duties of the Board of Cha-Commissioners, ritable Becpiests are to be transferred to them; they and their Assistant Com¬ missioners are also to be " invested with all such powers for the purposes of inquiry, as have been given to the Commissioners for inquiring into the state of charities in 

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