IS REMARKS OF G.
C.
LEWIS, ESQ.,
2.
Vagrant penitentiaries.
Machinery recom¬ mended by the Commissioners.
Difficulties to be encountered by Irish Poor Law Commissioners.
there appears no other resource but to pass these persons back to their parishes, to receive out-door relief.
Moreover there is no security against persons applying, for a free passage who are able to pay for their own passage.
" All poor persons whose circumstances shall require it," would, in practice, amount to " all persons who shall make application;" if there is no check except the inquiry of a public, officer at an emigration depot.
With regard to the " vagrant penitentiaries," it is to be observed that all schemes for making vagrancy penal"must fail, where the vagrant has no right to relief from the public.
Now, as it is proposed to relieve the impotent, and as therefore none but the able-bodied will be forced to have recourse to vagrancy, it cannot be expected that able-bodied vagrants having no right to relief would be often appre¬ hended and brought to trial.
It is, moreover, to be observed, that the main body of vagrants in Ireland are the wives and children of able-bodied labourers/ who beo-in the summer vshen their stock of potatoes is exhausted; the husbands themselves rarely beg.
Now, if the wife is apprehended and convicted for vagrancy, what will be done with the husband and children 1 If emigration is inflicted as a punish¬ ment by the sentence of a court of law, it will be impossible to compel the husband, and unjust to compel the children, to accompany the wife; and if the wife is sent alone, it will be extremely hard to separate a family on so slight a ground; so severe a law would infallibly be'inoperative.
It is likewise most unwise to make emigra¬ tion a punishment, if it is intended to encourage voluntary emigration; the resem¬ blance of Government emigration to transportation is likely at any rate to be insisted on, and if Government emigration is made a punishment, even for so slight an.
offence as vagrancy, this may-" be expected to favour the confusion, and to furnish materials for popular declamation.
,
Those vagrants who are not able to emigrate are to be imprisoned aud kept to work in the vagrant penitentiary: on the length of the imprisonment and the kind of work the Commissioners make ho recommendation, but leave the legislature to decide as it thinks fit.
For what purpose convicted vagrantb unfit for emigration are to be imprisoned in a vagrant penitentiary, or how a vagrant penitentiary differs from a prison on the one hand, and a workhouse on the other, does not appear.
An attempt to attach the wages of able-bodied adults in the colony, as recom¬ mended by the Commissioners, would be vexatious and oppressive, and would probably end in producing scarcely any return.
If the settler's wages in the colony were stopped, it would be necessary to provide him with a maintenance from some other source.
On the whole, the system of emigration proposed by the Commissioners seems, as ' far as can be collected, from their faint outline, liable to numberless abuses and frauds.
It is encumbered with a double set of public institutions, both of which have a close affinity with workhouses ; but the Commissioners have called them by different names, and have, in conformity with their own principles, abstained from recommending that either should be used for the purpose to which the workhouse is properly applicable.
Having now gone through the recommendations of the Commissioners with respect to the extent of relief, and the mode of administering it, I shall next proceed to examine th&niachinery by which the system is proposed to be worked.
It is recommended, that Poor Law Commisbionerh be appointed, with power to name Assistant Commissioners, who shall divide Ireland into relief districts, and cause the lands of each to be surveyed and valued (s.
17).
That a Board of Guardians be elected in each district by the rate-payers, a part of which shall go out annually by rotation (s.
18).
This board is to have the direction of all institutions for the relief of the poor within its district, which are supported by a local rate (s.
IS), viz.,
institutions for persons labouring under permanent infirmities, in¬ firmaries, hospitals, convalescent establishments, and dispensaries (s.
20).
It may also be presumed that the Board of Guardians will be the dispensers of out-door relief; and this will be their most important function, although no notice is taken of it by the Commissioners.
The granting of tickets to persons desirous of emigra¬ tion, and the passing of them and of convicted vagrants to the emigration depots, are to be entrusted to the " officers of health;" these officers of health being elected by the Board of Guardians for every parish within tWr district.
Such is a brief outline of the machinery recommended in the Report.
With regard to the Irish Poor Law Commissioners, it is first to be remarked, that they will have to encounter all the difficulties which belong to a new subject.
They will have to divide all Ireland into districts, and to cause it to be surveyed and valued.
