MENDICANCY IN IRELAND. The Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Reports of the Poor-Law Commissioners. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed. Tt does great honour to the British people that the increase of their influence in the government has been shown principally by legislation for the sake of the poor, the weak, and the unrepre¬ sented. The abolition of Slavery, the regulation of Childrens’ Labour, and the introduction of a Poor-Law into Ireland—the three most important measures of this kind which have been carried during the last ten years—all originated in the public will, of which the Administration was not the guide, but the in¬ terpreter. All of them were measures involving the certainty of considerable sacrifice, and the contingency of much more; for they were experiments with respect to which every one could see that the results must be important; though no one could say precisely what would be the details of their direct operation, or what might be their remote or collateral consequences. Among these measures, we are inclined to think that the Irish Poor-Law was the one to which the Government looked with the greatest anxiety. About fifteen years ago, when such a measure was first seriously considered, a poor-law seemed to be rapidly destroying the wealth and morals of England. 01 the three principal modes in which public assistance can be afforded—out¬ door relief, the workhouse, and emigration—the two first had Mendicancy in Ireland. been tried in England, and bad apparently failed, and the last was alarming by its immediate expense. The Committee of the House of Commons, which produced the valuable Report on the poor of Ireland in 1828, state that ‘ The subject which has occupied the greater portion of the time ‘ of your committee, and that on which the most prolonged ‘ examination of witnesses has taken place, is the enquiry how * far the poor-laws of England or of Scotland, the principle of ‘ the 43d Elizabeth, or any other system of assessment, can be ‘ introduced into Ireland with beneficial consequences.’ They do not venture, however, to draw' any conclusion from their premises, and end by recommending that the consideration of the subject should be resumed at a future time; and that, in the mean time, the most severe and scrutinizing attention should be applied to the evidence which they had collected. But, though they do not dare to deal with a Poor-Law, they recommend a Vagrant-Law, after stating that the existing law is inefficient. The demise of the Crown prevented the ques¬ tion from being reconsidered during that Parliament, and the short-lived one which followed was fully occupied by the Reform Bill. In 1832, Mr Sadler moved a resolution declaring the ex¬ pediency of a poor-law in Ireland; but he was opposed by the Government, and defeated. The discussion, however, excited great attention within the House, and, what on such a subject was more important, without; and the next year it was thought necessary to appoint the well-known Commission of Enquiry. In 1835 the Commissioners presented their first Teport, accompanied by selections from the evidence which they had collected. Nearly one half of the volume is devoted to Mendicancy. The evidence describes almost every part of Ireland as overrun by beggars, ■consisting principally of aged or impotent men, or of families where the man, though able-bodied, is absent or out of work. It states that they avoid the dwellings of the wealthier classes, who are protected by walls or gates, or at least by closed doors; but that they make their way into the houses of tradesmen and small farmers, and the hovels of labourers, and obtain milk and meal where such things are to be found, and potatoes every where. Refusal seems to be almost unknown, so that a beggar’s income is equal at least to a handful of potatoes for every house which he can intrude into. The whole burden of supporting the poor is stated to fall on the middling and small farmers, the shopkeepers, and, above all, on the labourers themselves. With one exception, that of the town of Derry, the laws against vagrancy are stated to be wholly unexecuted. Many of the witnesses were themselves on the verge of mendicancy. Mendicancy in Ireland. All stated that while they had food they must give it. Religious feelings, and the belief that, by some special intervention of Providence, charity, however profuse, does not impoverish, seem to be the principal motives. The following very striking extracts present a sample of the evidence:— ‘ I consider that I should be in greater want if I gave none away than if I gave a great deal away; for I think that charity never short¬ ens the quantity.’ * ‘ If a meal were going on, and a beggar called, you would never miss what you gave away. I gave away myself part of the cake made of a quart of meal, and at the time I had no more victuals in the house, nor the hope of getting it the next day; hut I hoped that, as God gave it me that day, he would give me more next.’f ‘ Many give that can ill afford it, but God gives it back to them.’J ‘ It will never lessen [impoverish] me what I have given in the honour of God, and it is a great delight to me to hear the beggar say good prayers in honour of my soul.’ § ‘ Many persons stated that they had never been a night without some beggar in their houses. One family, m particular, was men¬ tioned in which were nine children, well brought up, yet the house had never been without one or two beggars in it.’ || ‘ I know persons that would be glad to have beggars in their houses every night of the year; they conceive they carry a blessing with them. They are generally admitted with welcome into any poor man’s house, and sometimes stay a week or longer.’ f «It is true that the beggar may be more certain of his next meal than one of ourselves, but we would think it a sin to refuse him.’** ‘ I was reduced to great distress last summer myself; I begged; and, if it be the will of God, may expect to do so next summer too; yet, when a beggar asks for God's sake, I cannot hold back part of what I have. The poorest man among us, if he has any charity in him, must give at least one stone of potatoes a-week in winter, f| ‘ The farmer, as he likes the beggar’s benediction, so he fears his curse. The ferrywoman at Valentia, who has orders not to convey any beggars into the island, is afraid to refuse them a passage lest a curse should sink the boat.’ J J The Reverend Mr Mahoney (parish priest of Listowel) observed, that ‘ he himself would be afraid of the beggar’s curse, for every poor person represents the Almighty. §§ * Selection of Parochial Examinations, by Commissioners for En¬ quiry into the Condition of the Poorer Classes in Ireland—P. 2S3. t Selections, p. 2S4. t Appendix to the first Report of the Commissioners of Enquiry, p, 753. § Ibid. p. 627. I) Ibid. p. 766. *r Selections, p. 290. ** Ibid. p. 292. If Ibid. p. 293. Ibid. p. 384. §§ Appendix, p. 687. Mendicancy in Ireland. In 1836 the Commissioners delivered their final Report, in which they describe a destitution so extensive as to be both a ground for legislative interference, and a circumstance rendering such inter¬ ference most difficult and most dangerous. They begin by considering the means by which relief may be afforded to the able-bodied and their families. They first con¬ sider and reject the workhouse system as unnecessary as a test, and as too expensive if accepted, and illusory if refused. They then consider and reject still more decidedly a legal system of out-door relief. They state that it would destroy the industry and usefulness of the labourer; would absorb the whole rental of the country; would render potatoes and cheap clothing the only commodities in demand; would extinguish manufac¬ tures and commerce, and within a very short period produce uni¬ versal ruin. There remained emigration, and this is the immediate remedy on which the Commissioners rely. They propose that all pom- persons, whose circumstances require it, shall be furnished with a free passage, and the means of settling themselves in a British non-penal colony: That the laws with respect to vagrancy be altered, and that penitentiaries be established, to which vagrants, when taken up, shall be sent: That they be charged with vagrancy before the next Quarter-Sessions, and, if convicted, be removed to such colony, not penal, as the Colonial Office may approve, and that the wages of the adult be attached for payment of the .expenses. Having thus dealt with the able-bodied and their families, the Report proposed extensive schemes of local improvement; and that a legal provision should be made for the relief and support of persons labouring under bodily infirmities, for the support of Penitentiaries to which vagrants should be sent, and for the main¬ tenance of deserted children. These recommendations had in view only the able-bodied and their families, and the impotent by accident or disease. For the relief of those who, though not comprised in those classes, are yet fit objects of charity, the Report proposed the encouragement of voluntary associations, to be placed in connexion with the Poor-Law Commissioners ; to be subject to their regulation and control; and to be assisted by them by grants from the national rate, in some proportion to the sums voluntarily contributed. A very small minority of the Commissioners were opposed to this suggestion, and the consequence was that it was mentioned shortly and dryly in the Report, and developed only in a subse¬ quent paper, called Appendix II. It appears to us, that the proposal which was powerfully, we Mendicancy in Inland. arc almost inclined to say unanswerably, supported in this paper, has never been sufficiently, or even seriously considered. We earnestly recommend it to the attention of the Government, when they undertake the further improvement of the Irish poor-law; and to that of the Commissioners on whom the arduous and responsible task of Reporting on the poor-law's of Scotland has been imposed. It is to be observed, that in this Report, and indeed through¬ out the discussion on Irish poor-laws, the words ‘ vagrant’ and 1 mendicant,’ and ‘ vagrancy’ and ‘ mendicancy,’ though etymolo¬ gically different, are generally used as synonymous. According to the English law, mendicancy, and many other acts which may be committed by a person who never travels a hundred yard's from his house, are punishable as acts of vagrancy or vagabond¬ age. The laws prohibiting mendicancy have, therefore, usually been termed the vagrant laws. As this nomenclature is usual, and does not appear likely to produce error, we have not avoided it. The Government seems to have been alarmed at the extent and the complexity of the recommendations of the Report. But as it was obvious that some measures must be introduced to re¬ lieve the destitution, and check the mendicancy which it described, they sent Mr Nichoils to Ireland, with general directions to en¬ quire into the expediency of its proposals; and with a special instruction to consider whether a rate might be usefully directed to the erection and maintenance of workhouses for all those who sought relief as paupers. Mr Nichoils made his Report in November 183G. He agreed with the Commissioners in desciibing the mendicancy of Ireland as a frightful evil—as an evil hardly to be overrated. ‘ Mendi- ‘ cancy,’ he says, ‘ and indiscriminate almsgiving, seem to have ‘ produced the same results in Ireland, as indiscriminate relief ‘ produced in England; the same reckless disregard of the future, ‘ the same idle and disorderly conduct, the same proneness to ‘ outrage and resistance to lawful authority.’ He agreed also with the Commissioners, that the burden of supporting the poor fell exclusively on the poorer classes. ‘ There is,’ he says, ‘ in ‘ reality, a compulsory rate now levied in Ireland, though not c sanctioned by legal enactment; and no occupier, however ‘ limited his means, turns away the mendicant empty-handed. ‘ There is an almost superstitious dread of doing so; and this ‘ operates as compulsorily as the law would act in the raising a ‘ regular rate.’ He differed from them as to the inutility of the workhouse as a test. He believed much of the apparent distress to be fictitious, or the result of idleness. He believed that the Mendicancy in Ireland. establishment of workhouses would enable the Legislature to suppress mendicancy; and recommended that it should be gene¬ rally prohibited, and that the central authority should be respon¬ sible for bringing the act into operation in the several unions, as the workhouses became fitted for the reception of inmates. ‘ In furtherance of this object,’ he adds, ‘ the police should act ‘ in close communication with the boards of guardians, and the ‘ central authority should so regulate the measure, that the now ‘ itinerant mass of mendicants who may be really unable to pro- ‘ vide for themselves, should be placed in the several workhouses, ‘ and the able-bodied but idle vagrants, and disorderly persons, ‘ should be compelled to provide for their own subsistence.’ And he expressed a strong belief, that a rate for this purpose, divided between the landlord and the occupier, would relieve the occupier from more than half of what he then contributed in the form of alms, and would be still more beneficial to the landlord, by restoring the dominion of the law, and enabling him to be master of his estate. The Irish Poor-Law Bill of the first Session of 1837, was founded on this report. It authorized the erection of work- houses, and enacted, that when the commissioners should have declared a workhouse to be fit, the guardians should take order for the relieving at their discretion, and setting to work in such workhouse, such persons as they should deem to be destitute poor. It further enacted, that every person, able, wholly or in part, to maintain himself, or any other person whom he might be liable to maintain, and wilfully neglecting so to do, by which neglect he or such person should become destitute, and relieved at the expense of the union ; or who, not being destitute, should apply for relief within a union on the plea of destitution; or who should beg, or set a child to beg, within a union containing a workhouse capable of receiving him; should, on conviction at petty sessions, be imprisoned with hard labour for a month. Repetition of the offence, or gathering alms on false pretences, were punishable with three months’ such imprisonment. In the speech by which Lord John Russell introduced the bill, on the 13th February 1837, he proposed, as the ultimate result of the measure when in full operation, that to all destitute persons seeking relief subsistence should be given, and that they should not be allowed to disturb society by seeking it by any other means. But that, until that could be done, vagrancy should not be altogether prohibited ; and therefore that persons should not be prohibited from seeking alms, if they could show that they had been to the workhouse, or applied to the guardians and had been refused relief. ‘ If the scheme,’ he added, Mendicancy in Ireland. 7 ‘ succeed, we shall be hereafter and finally able to prohibit ‘ vagrancy.’ In the debate on the second reading, on the 1st of May, Lord John stated the ;;hree advantages of a poor-law to be—that it relieves the extre/nely destitute; that it gives a right to prohibit vagrancy; and that it brings the landowners and the labourers into closer contact. It was subsequently, however, thought advisable that the vagrancy clauses should be made the subject of a separate bill. They were, therefore, passed over in the committee; and ultimately the progress of the whole measure was stopped by the dissolution. In the autumn of 1837, Mr Nicholls made a second visit to Ireland. It has been seen that, in his first Report, made in 1836, he proposed a Poor-Law as a means of suppressing mendicancy. The same view is taken in the Report which he made in 1837. ‘ To establish a poor-law,’ he says, ‘ without at the same ‘ time suppressing mendicancy, would be very imperfect legis- ‘ lation, especially with reference to the present condition of the ‘ Irish people. To make a provision for relieving mendicants at ‘ the public charge, without at the same time preventing begging, ‘ would leave the Irish cottier exposed to much of the pressure ‘ which he now sustains; for the mendicant classes generally, if ‘ permitted, would prefer the vagrant life to which they are ‘ accustomed, to the order, cleanliness, and constraint of a work- ‘ house. To suppress mendicancy, therefore, constitutes an es- ‘ sential part of the proposed system of poor-laws. When the bill was re-introduced in the Parliament which met in November 1837, the separation of the mendicancy clauses was abandoned, and they were reinserted without alteration. They were, in fact, the basis on which the bill was founded. ‘ In ‘ every country,’ said Lord John Russell in his opening speech, ‘ recovering from want, there must be many persons in a state of ‘ destitution. The question arises, what provision can be made ‘ for this class ? If you make no provision, you cannot say that ‘ such persons have not the right to receive from their neigh- ‘ hours necessary food and raiment, and you thereby leave in the ‘ state a vast number of persons, some of whom exercise fairly, ‘ and from the utmost need, the right of asking for alms, but ‘ many of whom are impostors, who prey on the rest of the com- ‘ munity. Besides this, you leave one department of police ‘ neglected; for you leave these persons at one time beggars, to ‘ become at another plunderers. By furnishing relief for the ‘ destitute, you obtain the power of preventing and punishing ‘ mendicancy. When the means of existence are supplied, no ‘ man will have a right to become a common beggar or to prey Mendicancy in Ireland. ‘ on the property of the country.’ In his speech on the second reading of the bill, on the 5th of February 1838, he stated it to be just, to be a part of the law of England, and to be consonant to humanity, that relief should be afforded to destitution; but that, if persons who do not want that relief, or who refuse to accept it, persist in infesting the country, some punishment should be in¬ flicted on them. Fie proposed to put the law on a just footing, and while enacting that vagrancy should not be permitted, to provide also that destitution should be relieved. The principle, he repeated, on which a poor-law ought to be founded was, that the state should relieve destitution, and at the same time prevent vagrancy. Nothing could be weaker—in fact, more really insignificant— than the few objections, in the debate, to the clauses suppressing vagrancy. Some expressions of dissent from Sir F. Shaw and Mr Miles, and some declamation from Sir W. Brabazon, Sir F. Burdett, and Mr Hindley, were the whole amount of opposi¬ tion in debates which lasted from December till March—debates in which almost every other portion of the bill was fiercely and pertinaciously attacked. But when the Committee had reached the clauses on the 2d of March, they were struck out, with¬ out explanation or even remark. A few days afterwards, on the 9th of April, Mr Redington moved their restoration; but Lord Morpeth begged him to withdraw the motion, on the ground that it was the intention of Government to bring in a separate measure for the suppression of vagrancy. The bill, therefore, passed the Commons without the enactments which, till then, had been supposed to be the vital portion of the measure. When the bill was first read in the House of Lords, in May, Lord Melbourne stated it to be the foundation of a measure for the suppression of mendicancy. And the Duke of Wellington, admitting that, without a Poor-Law, mendicancy could not be put down, expressed his hope that, in the course of the session, the Government would give the House reason to believe that a mea¬ sure for that purpose would be brought in. The opinions on this subject in the Lords were, indeed, as decidedly expressed as in the Commons. Lord Hatherton said, that he agreed with the Duke of Wellington that the bill could not work unless clauses were inserted to suppress mendicancy and vagrancy; or some separate measure were passed for that purpose. Lord Clanricarde urged that such clauses should be inserted in the bill before the House ; and Lord Melbourne’s answer was, that he was not prepared to say whether they would be comprised in that bill, or form the matter of a separate measure. The subject, however, seems to Mendicancy in Ireland. 9 have been lost sight of, and the bill passed in the form in which we now see it. On the 19th of March 1840, the Administration performed the promise which they had made in each House, that the mendi¬ cancy portion of the Poor-Law measure should be brought for¬ ward. Lord Morpeth, ‘ in pursuance,’ as he said, ‘ of the under- ‘ standing when the poor-law passed, that the mendicancy clauses ‘ should be embodied in a separate bill; in pursuance of the Re- ‘ ports of the Poor-law Commissioners, and particularly of the ‘ resident commissioner; and lastly, in pursuance of the sug- ‘ gestions of many large bodies, and many boards of guardians ‘ already formed in Ireland,’ asked leave to bring in a bill for the suppression of mendicancy in Ireland. The bill wms far less comprehensive than the clauses struck out from the Act of 1838. It merely enacted, that any person begging, or setting a child to beg, in a union containing a work- house capable of receiving him, should be imprisoned, with hard labour, for one month; and that a person repeating the offence, or going about on false pretences as a collector of charitable con¬ tributions, or obtaining alms by the exposure of wounds or de¬ formity, should be imprisoned, with hard labour, for three months. It was read, the first time, on the 20th of March 1840, but was coldly received by Sir R. Peel, without whose active co-opera¬ tion it could not, in the then state of parties, have been passed. A short time afterwards, Lord Morpeth withdrew it—‘ not,’ as he said, ‘ from any doubt as to its expediency, or even as to its ‘ necessity, but in the expectation that subsequent events would ‘ make that necessity evident to all parties.’ It will be observed, that, throughout these discussions, it is assumed that Ireland is now practically without a law restraining mendicancy. There are, indeed, such laws in the statute-book; but defects in their machinery, the severity of their punishments, and the absence in their enactments of any reference to a legal provision for the poor, have rendered them inefficient. The assumption, therefore, is correct. The abandonment of the mendicancy clauses has been account¬ ed for, by imputing to their opponents a belief, that when once a provision was made for the destitute, the practice of indiscrimi¬ nate almsgiving would cease without legal interference. Such a belief could have been entertained only by those who had attend¬ ed little to the real grounds on which the practice depends. ‘ I think,’ says Mr St George, ‘ that religious feelings would induce many to relieve a beggar even at the door of a poor-house.* Selections, p. 284. 10 Mendicant y in Ireland. • Though there were a legal relief for the destitute, I should still like to do something for the Last Day, if I could afford it. The way would he this:—A beggar would come to you, and you would refer him to the institution. “ Oh, the curse of God 1” he would say, “ on itself and its institutions ; not a blast of a pipe they’ll give us; we were better off when we had the run of the country.” You can’t re¬ fuse one then; besides, if you give alms, you’ll get a prayer for it, but the people in that house would pray neither for the quick nor the dead.’* * * § ‘ The predominating feeling with the class who give most freely and indiscriminately, is a belief that charity is a duty, the neglecting which would entail misfortunes both here and hereafter. It is believed that the feeling is so strong, that they would not consider themselves re¬ lieved from the claims of charity by the establishment of places of refuge for the poor.f 1 “ If there were a poor-house at the top of the street, where every beggar could get relief, you would rather give than let him go in there ? ”—“ Why, if a poor person came to me, I would give him some¬ thing, to be sure.”—“ Even though you knew that a person in real distress could not want relief, and that you were encouraging idle¬ ness?’’—“ Why, to tell you the truth, I think we would be lonesome without them, f ‘ A fear,’ says Dr M'Hale, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Tuam, ‘ that the applicant is suffering from want, is not the motive for giving alms. Instances of extremity rarely appear at the door. Begging is a trade, and charity is a duty. The peasantry are under the impres¬ sion (a salutary one,) that “ he that giveth to the poor shall not want, but he that despiseth his entreaty shall suffer indigence.”§ It must never be forgotten that the beggar is not in Ireland— as he is in England—an outcast, whose apparent misery is as¬ cribed to imposture or vice—whose contact is degradation to the humblest labourer—and who is relieved, not so much to satisfy his wants as to get rid of his presence. The Irish cottier consi¬ ders the beggar as his equal—indeed, as acting a part in the great drama of life which he may have to perform erelong himself. The beggar is not an occasional and unwelcome intruder; he makes a part, and probably not the least agreeable part, of the society of the family. He has his regular seat before the pota- toe-bowl, his nook near the chimney where a chimney exists, and the corner in which he sleeps, on the straw which he has begged during the day. He brings with him news, flattery, con- * Selections, p.338. John Casey. f Ibid. p. 414- John Casey. { Appendix to the First Report of the Commissioners of Enquiry, p. 650. § Ibid. 488-490. Mendicancy in Ireland. versation, prayers, the blessing of God, and the good-will ot men. ‘ The cabin,’ as one of the witnesses remarks, ‘ would be ‘ lonesome without him.’ To believe that a practice, the growth of centuries—strength¬ ened by hourly occasions for its exercise, required by public opinion, and enforced by the hope of good and the fear of evil, both temporal and eternal—would cease, while the opportunities for yielding to it remained unremoved ; to believe that the small farmer, the shopkeeper, and the labourer, would turn the beggar from his door—would refuse to him the accustomed shelter, or the accustomed handful of meal or potatoes—would incur the pain of witnessing want which he could relieve, the imputation of avarice or hard-heartedness, and the fear of a curse in this world and in the next; and deny himself the pleasure of sympa¬ thy, the credit of charitableness, and the certainty of recompense from Heaven, merely because he was told that, some miles off, there was a union workhouse where the applicant could be re¬ lieved;—to believe all this, seems to imply an ignorance of human nature which it would be presumptuous to impute to the Legislature. It must have been observed, that the late Government never ventured to take the opinion of either House on the enactments by which they proposed to suppress mendicancy. They decla¬ red those enactments to be necessary; they introduced them in three different bills ; but, on every occasion, postponed or with¬ drew them before the time of discussion. They obviously con¬ templated a formidable resistance; and, though the debates do not show any ground for such an apprehension, yet we have no doubt that it was well founded. Whether the resistance was expected to arise from misdirected benevolence, or from a desire to obtain a repeal of the Irish poor-law by rendering it inefficient; or, at a later period, from the eagerness of the Op¬ position to overthrow a tottering Ministry, (and it is probable that many members might have been influenced by one or more of these motives, and some by all of them,)—whatever were the quarters from which resistance was feared, the fear was yield¬ ed to; and the boldest administrative measure of modern, times— the measure which its enemies denounced as destructive, and which even its friends could scarcely call safe—was passed with the omission of a portion which those who proposed it declared to be essential to its working; and has now been suffered to re¬ main thus imperfect for nearly five years. On almost every other point of the proposed measure opinions had been divided— whether relief should or should not be confined to the workhouse: whether there should or should not be a law of settlement; v he- 12 Mendicancy in Ireland. tlier the right to relief should or should not he acknowledged ; whether the rate should be national or local; whether the superintendence of the new law should be in the hands of the English poor-law commissioners or of a separate board; whether the commissioners should or should not have the control of cha¬ rities ;—all these questions were long and fiercely contested. On one point, and on one only, all who wrote, and nearly all who spoke, were unanimous; namely, that the offer of relief must be accompanied or followed by the prohibition of mendicancy. And on that point the act is silent; Lord Morpeth’s bill expired after the first reading, and relief and mendicancy are allowed to coexist. The Commissioners seem to have thought, and we believe that they were right, that it was their business to assume either that the law, even in its imperfect state, would be efficient, or that the defect would be supplied by subsequent legislation. When they dispatched their assistant-commissioners on their first ex¬ pedition to form unions, they directed them to consider how the new law might be introduced so as soonest to abate the practice of begging; and they instructed them to calm the fears of the future rate-payers, by stating that the mendicant classes were supported by the community, and would be so no more after the establishment of the unions; that the relief would, in future, be afforded in the most economical manner, and only to the really destitute; and that a decrease of the existing charge would be the consequence of the act.* The Boards of Guardians, however, were less confiding. One of the first uses which the majority of them made of their new powers, was to demand a law for the suppression of mendicancy. We shall here extract a few of their Resolutions: t— ‘ Athlone Union, 3d Dec. 1839. ‘ The guardians of the union having been called on to raise the necessary sum for building the workhouse, cannot refrain from ex¬ pressing their unanimous opinion, that it will he of essential importance to the well-working of the poor-law to have a stringent vagrant law, such as now exists in England.’ ‘ Belfast Union, 10th Dec. 1S39. ‘ Resolved unanimously—That this hoard desires to impress upon the poor-law commissioners their opinion of the essential necessity of some legislative enactment for the suppression of vagrancy and men¬ dicancy, from which, when they are called upon to pay rates for the relief of the destitute poor, the payers of rates have a right to he exempt.’ * Instructions to Assistant-Commissioners_Sixth Report, p. 51—57. f See Sixth Report of the Boor-Law Commissioners, pp. 417, 418. Mendicancy in Ireland. ‘ Limerick Union, 27tli Nov. 18:!'). ‘That it is the opinion of this hoard, that a legislative enactment for the punishment and suppression of mendicancy is required; but that the penalties of such act should not he enforced against any mendi¬ cant unless it can bo proved that he has received an oiler of the work- house from an authorized person, hut has refused the relief so offered him.’ These resolutions, and the opinion of the Commissioners, strong¬ ly expressed in their sixth report, were among the grounds on which Lord Morpeth rested his unsuccessful bill of 1840. In their next Report, that of 1841, the Commissioners repeat their conviction, ‘ That the suppression of mendicancy is necessary in every union, as soon and so long as the workhouse is open, and available for the relief of the destitute.’ . . ‘ It has been thought’ [they add] ‘ by some, that persons will cease to give to beggars when called upon to pay poor-rates.’ . . ‘Wo cannot concur in this opinion. We believe that the mendicant classes will continue to levy their contri¬ butions, unless the legislature shall protect the rate-payer from demands and threats which, if left to himself, he will he totally unable to withstand. ‘ Such being our deliberate view of this question, wo observed with regret that the bill for the suppression of mendicancy, which Lord Morpeth introduced into the House of Commons last session, has not been proceeded with. We do not mean to say that the enactment of such a law was indispensably necessary at the time, or even that it will be im¬ possible to continue our operations effectively during the present year without the aid of such a measure; hut it is our duty to state to your lordship our conviction, that a law for the repression of mendicancy is essential to the well-working of the poor relief act in Ireland, and that a bill for this purpose ought to he introduced into parliament at the earliest practicable period.’ On the 1st of May 1841, the Commissioners hinted a doubt whether a vagrant law was not indispensable to the working of the law even during the then current year. Nearly two years have since elapsed without one, and experience has, we think, justified their fears. On the first opening of the union-houses, mendicancy is said to have nearly ceased in their vicinity. We are told that many of the mendicants were relieved in them; and that many others abandoned their trade. The conduct and the professions of all who had taken any part in the introduction of the law, associated in every mind the prohibition of mendicancy with the public relief of the poor, and it was generally supposed that the act pro¬ hibited begging.* The error of course was short-lived. Those * Seventh and Eighth Reports, passim. H Mendicancy in Ireland. who had merely suspended their requisitions renewed them; many tried the workhouse and fled from its confinement to the freedom of vagrancy; and still more crowded to fill up the vacancies, which the opening of the workhouses was known to have occasioned. The Report of May 1842, the last which has been presented, leads to the painful suspicion that the Irish Poor-Law, like many of its predecessors in England, has aggravated the evil which it was intended to repress; and that there is now in Ireland more mendicancy and more vagrancy than before its enactment. 1 In some of the unions,’ say the Commissioners, ‘ after the stock of habitual mendicants had, for the most part, been taken into the work- houses, the rate-payers, finding that the removal of what may be call¬ ed their own established poor did not protect them from mendicancy, hut was followed by inroads of beggars from the surrounding districts, or even from those more distant, have deemed it better that their own poor should be permitted to levy contributions from house to house as heretofore, than that the rate-payers should incur the charge of main¬ taining them in the workhouses; and at the same time be compelled to make contributions to casual vagrants or mendicant strangers, by whom their doors were beset. ‘ In the Kilmallock Union, the rate-payers of a certain electoral division came in a body to the workhouse, and demanded to have their poor delivered up to them, which was accordingly done, and they were carried back, with great demonstrations of rejoicing, to be supported by almsgiving in the accustomed mode. The rate-payers in this case, no doubt expected that, when they had their own beggars about them, they would be protected from the inroads of beggars from other dis¬ tricts, to which they were liable so long as their own habitual stock were maintained in the workhouse.’ We will not fatigue the readers by repeating the remonstran¬ ces from Boards of Guardians and other public bodies, appended by the Commissioners to their last Report. They resemble in substance those which we have quoted from the Report of 1841, though, perhaps, marked by more asperity of language. We will extract, however, the Petition from the Castlederg Union, be¬ cause it alludes to a new source of danger:— ‘ Your petitioners, after fourteen months’ experience, are convinced of the necessity of a law to suppress mendicancy. From mistaken ideas of economy on the part of some of the rate-payers, and dislike of workhouse relief on the part of the mendicants, almsgiving still coni ,nd the community still suffers from the profligacy which is a necessary accompaniment and consequence of begging.’ The mistaken economy alluded to by the Petition is a notion that it is cheaper to relieve by almsgiving than in the work- house. Such an opinion, if extensively prevalent among the Mendicancy in Ireland. 15 rate-payers, would paralyze the whole law. Its progress and its consequences are well pointed out by Mr Clements:— ‘ I think it necessary to state, that there is a desire amongst the people, which is on the increase in various parts of the country, to encourage mendicancy rather than incur the expense of maintaining the paupers in the workhouse. When the workhouse was first open, there was but one wish, that of putting down begging. I believe that, if the question were put to any of the people who have now other views, they would say, that they did not desire to encourage mendicancy, hut merely to help their own poor. It is needless for me to point out to you the impossibility of their continuing such a practice, without perpetuating the system of indiscriminate almsgiving, as has hitherto been the custom. ‘ It appears to me that, if a law for the repression of mendicancy he enacted early next session, begging may be put down by degrees with comparative facility; but if the matter be deferred for another year, the difficulty will be very much increased, as the general co-operation which may now be expected might not be obtained when the people shall have formed an opinion, that to give to the beggar in the manner I have described, is preferable to maintaining him in the workhouse. ‘ I should observe, that the provision for the maintenance by each electoral division of its own poor, which has always been considered, and I think justly, an improvement to the original hill, will, if some enactment be not made for the repression of mendicancy, become the means of defeating the whole object of the law ; because it is on ac¬ count of different rates made on electoral divisions, according as they have many or few paupers in the house, that the people on whom the higher rate is made are induced to endeavour to diminish it, by en¬ couraging the paupers to leave the house, to be maintained in the manner I have before described. The more general this feeling should become, the more difficult it will be to put down mendicancy. The legal enactment becomes, therefore, the more urgent, in order that it may be made available while the majority of the people are prepared to assist in its enforcement.’ This warning, like all the others, was disregarded. Sir Robert Peel, with his majority of one hundred, was not more bold than Lord John Russell had been with his twenty-one. The session of 1842 passed by, and the evil has been allowed to grow and to extend; until the dangers of the disease and the dangers of the remedy might well alarm a stronger and a more resolute Administration than that to which the welfare of Ireland is now confided. We are often told that the people of Ireland are lovers of justice; the meaning of which we take to be, not that they are peculiarly prone to act justly towards other people, but that they fiercely resent the appearance of injustice towards themselves. Now, it is impossible to deny that, in this matter, the rate- Mendicancy in Ireland. Hi payers of Ireland have been treated with injustice. They have been induced, on false pretences, to consent to erect workhouses and levy rates. They were told by all who in Parliament brought forward or supported the law, that it was to be a measure of eco¬ nomy; that they were to be saved in almsgiving more than they would have to pay in rates. The same doctrine was repeated to them by the commissioners, by the assistant commissioners; in short, by all who recommended or even defended the measure. If this statement turns out to be only partially true in any of the unions, and utterly unfounded in the great majority; if the rates are, in general, a mere addition to the alms; if the men¬ dicancy is, in general, altered only by the substitution of a new crowd of beggars—can we wonder that the law should become odious, or that the collection of rates should be opposed by tumult, or by the more effectual machinery of passive resistance ? It is, of course, much easier to prove the necessity of a law for the repression of mendicancy, than to suggest its details. The English vagrancy laws are measures of Police; and compre¬ hend, as we have already remarked, many offences which are not acts either of vagrancy or mendicancy. Since we think that the measure which we demand ought to be introduced as a part of the Poor-Law; and since the repression of the offences in question, however proper or however necessary, has no necessary connexion with the relief of the poor; we would recommend that it should form no part of the measure, and that the bill, at the furthest, aim at nothing beyond the prohibition of vagrancy and mendicancy. Lord Morpeth’s bill, as we have seen, merely prohibited mendicancy; and perhaps, as a first experiment, it may be well not to go beyond it. In one respect, indeed, we would not go quite so far. That bill, following the bills of 1837 and 1838, punishes the beggar if there be within the union a work- house capable of maintaining him. If the law be passed in that form, the guilt or innocency of mendicancy will depend, not on the conduct of the mendicant, but on a fact of which he may frequently be ignorant. A beggar finds, or hears, that the work- house is full. He exercises the right which that fact confers on him, and begs in a distant part of the union, perhaps eight or nine miles from the workhouse. While he is doing so, somebody dies in the workhouse, or quits it; it becomes capable of receiv¬ ing him, and his right to beg is gone without his knowing it. Or perhaps he crosses, in ignorance, the frontier between the union in which the workhouse is full, and begging therefore pri¬ vileged, and one where the workhouse is empty, and begging therefore an offence. Statistical and geographical errors will be iMendicancy in Ireland. 17 punishable by imprisonment and hard labour! We much prefer the proposal made by Lord John Russell, in his speech of the 13th of February 1837 ; namely, that no one should be punished for begging if he could show that he had applied at the work- house, and had been refused legal relief. It has been suggested to us by an authority which we respect, that every person applying at the workhouse and refused relief, should be entitled to receive a ticket, stating such refusal, its date and its grounds, and such other particulars as the Poor-Law Commissioners shall prescribe; a duplicate to be kept by the board of guardians. And that, for the space of seven days from the date of such ticket, such person shall not be punishable for the mere act of begging, if, while begging, he show his ticket. We say for the mere act of begging; for he must remain punishable, notwithstanding the ticket, if his beg¬ ging were accompanied by any other offence, If, for instance, he were begging on false pretences. Otherwise, an impostor who had been refused relief on the express ground of his being an impostor, would, by such refusal, become a privileged beggar. Requiring the beggar while begging to show his ticket, would enable the police to arrest, without further enquiry, all beggars unprovided with tickets, and all whose tickets disclosed facts making their trade an offence. We are anxious, however, to guard against any impression that we join in the belief which seems to have been felt by all who introduced the Irish Poor-Law, that, if the vagrancy clauses had been retained in that act, mendicancy would have been gene¬ rally and quickly suppressed; or that we believe that it would now be so suppressed, if our recommendations were adopted. No law is so dependent for its efficiency on public coropera- tion as a law prohibiting mendicancy; and there is no country in which that co-operation can less be relied on than Ireland. We believe that the best chance for the success of the prohibition would have been to incorporate it (as was proposed by all the friends of the measure) in the poor-law. But even then it would have been neglected in some districts, and imperfectly executed in more. We fear that if it be passed this year, it will be less efficient than it would have been in 1838 ; and that if it be delayed till 1844, it will be worse executed than if it become law during the pre¬ sent session. But a well-grounded fear that all the objects of a ■measure will not be attained, is no reason for abandoning it; if it appear likely to be beneficial, though less so than it might have been under more favourable circumstances. We believe that there are many parts of Ireland in which a law restraining mendicancy will be faithfully executed. We believe that.there are 18 Mendicancy in Ireland. many others in which it will be executed, imperfectly indeed, but yet usefully, so far as it is executed at all. And we believe that when its utility has been tested by experience—when the Assistant-Commissioners, on whom we rely for the diffusion of sound principles, can urge the authorities in one district to use their power of repressing mendicancy, by pointing out the advan¬ tages which have been derived by their neighbours—the law will be more widely and more effectually acted on every year, until at length the evil, though never to be extirpated, may be redu¬ ced to the endurable amount in which it obtains in Great Bri¬ tain. Then, and not till then, will the promise on which the Poor-Law was founded be performed. While a rate for the relief of the poor, levied by the legal collector, is coexistent with a rate levied by the mendicant, the Irish Poor-Law is almost a legisla¬ tive fraud; since the express ground on which the landholders were required to pay poor-rates was, that they were to be relieved from at least an equivalent expenditure in alms. Another, or, as we think, an unfortunate deviation from the Report of the Commissioners of Enquiry from the recommendation of Mr Nicholls, and from the bill of 1837, respects the liability to poor-rate of occupiers under the annual value of L.5. The bill of 1837, and that of 1838, as passed by the House of Com¬ mons, made the rate in all cases a charge on the occupier, but allowed the L.5 occupier to deduct the whole amount. But this arrangement was altered in the House of Lords, and the occupier under L.5 was put upon the same footing as all others; rendered liable to the rate, and allowed to deduct from his rent a poundage equal to one-half of his assessment. The principal motive which induced the House of Lords to make this change, appears to have been a fear that the land¬ lords, in order to escape the rate, might be induced to raise the rents of their small occupiers to L.5, or to eject them, and to consolidate their tenancies. The provisions of the act render the former supposition impossible. The value of every tene¬ ment is taken, for the purposes of the Poor-Law, not according to its nominal rent, but according to an estimate formed by valuers appointed under the act. If the nominal rent exceeds that value, the landlord, so far as the rate is concerned, is a loser; for the tenant can deduct from the rent a poundage equal to the poundage of the rate. Thus, if the rate be a shil¬ ling in the pound, and the tenement is rated at L.4, but rented at L.5, the occupier is entitled, under the existing act, to deduct two shillings and sixpence, or half of one shilling in the pound on L.5, though he has only four shillings to pay. We have heard of cases where the difference between the nominal Mendicancy in Ireland. 19 rent and the estimated value has been such, that the occupier has been entitled to deduct more than he has paid. Those who feared that the expectation of having to pay the whole rate would lead to ejectment, cannot have been aware of the trifling amount of the payments in question. We believe that the occupiers under L.5 in value, are about one-half in number, and one-fifteenth in value of the rate-payers; and that the average yearly rate in Ireland does not amount to fifteen- pence in the pound on the rental.* On these data, if, instead of the whole, one half of the rate on tenements under L.5 were thrown on the owners, it would be an additional charge, equal to one-half of a sixteenth of a fifteenth of the rental of Ireland, or one-halfpenny on the pound. Of course, however, the tenancies under L.5 are not equally distributed. In some districts, they form a larger portion in value of the lands than in others, and there may be properties of which they constitute the bulk. But even in these cases, it is highly improbable that the landlord would be governed in the management of his property by the apparent saving of sixpence or sevenpence in the pound. We say the apparent saving; for it is clear, indeed it is admitted, that the whole rate, whether partially or wholly advanced by the occu¬ pier, is really paid by the landlord. Unless the landlord volun¬ tarily sacrifices rent to influence—a case very rare in Ireland— he obtains from the tenant the full value of the use of the land. Every tax, every burden thrown upon the land, reduces that value, and causes a proportionate diminution of rent. This is true, even in Great Britain, and more obviously so in Ireland ; where the competition for land gives it a value, compared with its productiveness, far exceeding what it bears in a country where agriculture is only one of many occupations. On the larger farms, the landlord receives all that the tenant can pay, after re¬ serving an average remuneration for his capital, his skill, and his labour. On the small holdings, where the tenant has neither capital nor skill, the landlord gets all that the tenant can pay after reserving the means of existence. To talk of dividing the rate between such a tenant and his landlord is mockery. It may be supposed, however, that the smallness of the sum at which the occupiers under L.5 can be' assessed, prevents its being felt. And if it could be satisfied in potatoes, or in labour, such would be the case. But it is exacted in money, and money * We have now accidentally before us the rental of a property in Westmeath, consisting partly of farms and partly of a town. The whole net income is L.7000 a-year. The poor-rate is estimated at sixpence in the pound. 20 Mendicancy in Ireldnd. is a commodity almost unknowh to the Irish cottier. ITis family live on the produce of his potatoe-ground, and his cow; they use the fuel which he cuts from the bog, and are clothed principally in the work of their own hands. He pays his rent partly in pro¬ duce and partly in labour; and for months together has never to purchase or to sell, or even to barter. Under such circum¬ stances, any unexpected call for a money payment, however low, finds him unprepared; and the circumstance, that he is entitled to deduct one-half from his landlord, makes the demand appear to him more vexatious; as it seems an advance made by the poorer man on behalf of the richer. In England; the occupier under L.5 is seldom rated, or, if rated; is generally excused. The Poor-Law Commissioners, fol¬ lowing the plausible advice of the English Commissioners of Enquiry; endeavoured at first to enforce the rating of all occu¬ piers ; but they found the attempt resisted or evaded, often by parochial relief given in order to pay the rate, and have ultimate¬ ly abandoned it. How can we expect that a practice which can¬ not be maintained in a population remarkable for the constant use of money, and for a money income, large when compared to the average money incomes of the labouring classes in the rest of Europe, will be submitted to in a country equally remarkable for the absence of both ? There seem to be three modes of meeting the difficulty. First, To rate the occupier under L.5, and to allow him to deduct the whole amount from the rent which he has to pay to his immediate landlord; Secondly, To excuse him altogether; or Thirdly, To rate the immediate landlord. The first plan, rating the occupier, and allowing him to de¬ duct, was, as we have seen, that proposed by the Commissioners of Enquiry; and adopted by the Government and by the House of Commons. The objections are those which we have mentioned :—the difficulty and expense of exacting a money payment from a very poor population, little accustomed to its use; and the hard¬ ship of making the poorer man advance what is due from the richer. To which must be added, the frequent suspicion of fraud or oppression on the part of the landlord, who, where there is a lease, is always tempted to refer the deduction to some old claim . or hopeless arrear. The second plan is, as we have stated, usual in England. It is open to the obvious objections, that it must increase the burden on all other classes, and afford a new motive to subdivide tene¬ ments, or at least to retard their consolidation. With respect to the first objection, if our information be correct—that there are few unions in which the occupations under L.5 amount to one- fifteenth in value of the whole, when the expense and the loss on Mendicancy in Ireland. 21 collection are deducted—we believe that the real sacrifice occa¬ sioned by their total exemption would be trifling. With respect to the second, the exemption of such tenements in England, where the rates are three or four times as high as in Ireland, has not led to any subdivision; and when we consider the force of the motives which now drive the Irish landlord to consolida¬ tion, we do not believe that they would be overcome by the hope of so small a saving. We will venture also to express a suspicion that the clearing system has received an impulse from the Poor-Law, under which it is advancing with a rapidity to which it might not be unadvisable to interpose a slight check. We should, on the whole, prefer this arrangement to the en¬ forcing payment from the occupier, whether he were or were not entitled to make a corresponding reduction from his rent. The third plan, however, is that which we venture to recom¬ mend. It was proposed by the Poor-Law Enquiry Commissioners for England, for all dwellings under the annual value of L.15. It was proposed by Mr Nieholls for Ireland; and has been adopt¬ ed, and indeed extended much further than we now purpose to carry it, in the acts commuting tithes in Ireland. We recom¬ mend that the immediate lessor be the person assessed; and, to prevent any difficulty in discovering him, that the occupier be relieved from payment only on the condition that he state truly who is his lessor. Relieving the occupier, whatever were the mode adopted, would of course diminish by about one-half the constituencies of the Boards of Guardians. This would be unmixed good. The occupiers under L.5, have neither the necessary education nor the necessary independence. In many cases they are the blind instruments of their clergy; and the clause which excludes reli¬ gious ministers from the Boards, is virtually repealed by a con¬ stituency which elects their nominees. We cannot doubt that the existing system of universal suffrage is one of the causes of the unpopularity of the law among the more educated classes. One of its great purposes was the bringing the higher and middle classes into contact; and enabling, indeed forcing them to deliberate in common on the measures that may best promote their common well'am and that of their inferiors. Under the existing system this purpose is only partially and imperfectly effected. Better constituents would elect more enlightened guardians; the ex officio members would attend; and the Boards might become in Ireland what they are in England—Schools in which the different classes of society learn each other’s wants and opinions, and acquire by practice the difficult and necessary arts of administration.