poor the necessaries of life, would lead them into indolence.

But what then! Are none of the poor so vicious as to prefer subsisting on the industry of others, to earning their own bread? Are none of them so licentious as to waste their own earnings, with a view of resorting to the parish fund in the day of their need? Certainly! As there are many prodigals, and many idlers, and many criminals of divers kinds belonging to each and every class of society, so that class, to which pauperism belongs as an heir-loom, abounds with profligates. But as we never complain of our social condition, or think of returning to the woods from whence we came, because there are many profligates amongst us, neither should we reason or legislate for the lowest class in the state, as if they were all infected with an incurable disease.

You may not, by making a provision for the truly helpless poor, infuse into the minds of all, those good principles which they all should adopt. But you do what depends on you. You bring all your fellow creatures within the pale of civilization; you render them capable of receiving advice and instruction; you subject them voluntarily to the restraint of law; you remove the strongest incen

tive of wild and ungovernable passion, and you acquit yourself before God of the duty he imposed on you towards your fellow man.

But why is this objection brought forward? or why are we employed in combatting an error which does not concern us? For who has thought of introducing into Ireland a system of Poor Laws, which would vest in the idler, or the drunkard, or the improvident, a right to subsistence at the public cost? Who has thought of wresting from those who would relieve the poor, the power given to them by the law of heaven, which says, "IF ANY ONE DO NOT LABOUR, LET HIM NOT EAT;" or is it to deceive the public, and to bring odium on the poor, that their advocates are charged as the abettors of a system which they abhor? But enough has been said upon this idle, this silly objection. And yet not enough, if we are to consider the value in which it appears to be held by the oppoponents of a Poor Rate.

In every other page of "the evidence," we find, among the leading questions, the following "Do not the poor, when threatened with scarcity, practise great economy in the use of their provisions, so even as to sell their pigs, and husband their resources in every possible way ?" The inference sought to be

deduced from this interrogatory is, that if the poor in seasons of scarcity could look to periodical aid, they would be less careful of their own resources. This inference assumes as true, what we have just proved to be incompatible with the workings of our nature, and with the history of the human race for it assumes that the possession of property, however small the quantity, does not urge the possessor to preserve and increase his store. It assumes that men willingly become paupers; that they use no exertion to preserve their rank, however humble in society, but freely, and of their own accord take up the badge of pauperism, and even fix the brand of it upon their offspring. It assumes still more, for it supposes that periodical aid is to be extended as a matter of course to those in Ireland, who have food to spare, and pigs to feed, whereas no such thing is contemplated.Finally, the objection, if seriously entertained, is applicable only to such a system of Poor Laws, as would entitle every man, poor or without employment, to claim from the magistrate as a matter of right, subsistence for himself and his family. Such a system exists in England, but is not proposed by any person, whatever may be its merits, as adapted to the present state of Ireland.

It is also said, that if a Poor Law be introduced, the poor will improvidently contract marriage, hoping to discharge upon society the burthen of maintaining their offspring. There is no symptom more striking, or better ascertained of our social state, in these countries, having reached that point where luxury begins to produce corruption and decay, than the horror entertained, and the opposition given by the upper classes, to the legiti mate procreation of children by the poor. This, however, is a subject on which I cannot trust myself to write. It is unspeakably wicked in the rulers of a people, to throw obstacles in the way of lawful marriage, or to drive the multitude into habits of concubinage: and the state is not only at war with heaven, but it is corrupted in its institutions, and blind in its policy, when it seeks to check the multiplication of the human kind. But if ever there was a state more culpable than another, in either making or abetting such efforts, that state is Britain: for Britain with her wealth, her shipping, and her foreign possessions or dependancies, could colonize, to an unlimited extent, and standing as she does, between the old and new worlds, seems destined by Providence to receive the overflowing population of the one, and trans

fer that population to the other-there to enjoy the earth and the fulness thereof. But leaving this subject, which may appear not closely connected with that of which we treat, let us resume the consideration of improvident marriages, said to be encouraged by a legal provision for the poor.

Why Ireland, in which there is not, and has not been any provision for the poor, is the theatre whereon all the evils of such marriages have been exhibited; I have seen them, and lamented over them, and dissuaded from them, and even checked them, and often did so against all my feelings and convictions. But placed as I have been without power to remove, or to alleviate the sufferings of my country, I have often been obliged to select for toleration the lesser of two, or the least of many evils; but if Ireland, without a Poor Law, has outstripped all other nations in the number of her improvident marriages, it is by no means self-evident that a Poor Law, of its nature, tends to encourage such marriages. I have assigned them, upon more than one very solemn occasion, to a far different cause. I am sure I assigned them to their true cause. I assigned them to the squalid misery, to the close cohabitation-to the too free intercourse which extreme poverty begets. I assigned them