"This new kind of food did not agree with the human constitution; and the general and constant result of this exclusive herbaceous regimen, continued for such a length of time, was universal anasarca, without ascites or disease of the liver.

"This state of dropsical effusion, of which I have just spoken, continued during the whole of the time that such food was used, even during the heat of summer, and it did not disappear till the harvest of 1817, by the return to a natural diet; but a few individuals continued to have the face, abdomen, legs, or feet, bloated for some months afterwards.

"But, unfortunately, all did not escape so cheaply; for many of the less vigorous, or who used this bad food too long or too exclusively, or who depended for their subsistence upon the precarious support of mendicity, fell victims, and were frequently found dead by the road side *.”

"In February 1819, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland appointed a medical inspector for each of the four provinces, who ascertained on the spot the state of the fever since 1816, and the condition of the people. The inspectors made written returns to a set of questions, ten in num

*From the Journal de Physiologie Experimentale, as quoted in the Monthly Magazine, April 1822.

ber, embracing all the most important points necessary to be ascertained *.

"All the inspectors attribute the fever to bad and insufficient nourishment, the potatoe crops having failed in consequence of the extreme humidity of the two years 1815 and 1816, and there being nothing which could be resorted to as a substitute.

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They observe, that even the seed potatoes were taken up and eaten as food; that nettles, and all other esculent herbs, with the coarsest bran, were eaten; that the people became feeble from want of food; that their extreme wretchedness, and the despondency their miserable circumstances produced, fitted them to receive the fever; that they wandered about in masses, men, women, and children, knowing not where to go, nor what to do, and spreading disease and death on all sides.

"When a stranger, or labourer who had no cabin of his own, took the disease, it was quite customary to prepare a shed for him by the road side, by inclining some spars or sticks against a wall or bank of a ditch, and covering them with straw. Under these sheds, which the rain penetrated, the patients lay on a little straw; and

* These accounts were printed, by order of the House of Commons, on the 17th May 1819.

cruel as such treatment may appear, such was the malignant nature of the disease, that fewer died in those sheds than in the wretched mud cabins."

the

"Since I was last here (in Strabane) this town and neighbourhood have been visited by two of almost the heaviest calamities that can befall human beings-Fever and Famine have been let loose; and it is hard to say which has destroyed the most Hordes of wandering beggars, impelled by the cravings of hunger, carried the distemper from door to door Irish usages have always opened a ready way to the beggar Even in ordinary times poor claim charity less as a matter of favour than of right, and approach the rich man's door almost with the freedom of an inmate; but they now, in frightful numbers, besieged every house, and forced their way into kitchens, parlours, &c. Those who condemn the English system of Poor Laws would have here found reason to change their opinion; and have beheld the evils inseparable from leaving our fellow men to seek in infirmity and old age that bread, which, were society constructed as it ought to be, should be wanting to none*."

* Views of Society and Manners in the North of Ireland, written in 1818, by John Gamble, Esq.-Gentleman's Magazine, July, 1819, p. 52.

I regret that the same adherence to my principle compelled me to place an integral and valuable part of the British empire at the bottom of the scale. That contest, which the able author of the State of Ireland describes as a "constant warfare between landlords and tenants," is in fact the right of self-preservation warring against the right of property. I shall be happy if any thing in this Essay shall lead to a view of any principle, which may be applied to put an end to this distressing contest, and to afford to that country a participation of all the blessings of the British Constitution. I certainly comprehend within those blessings the system of relief afforded to indigence by the English Poor Laws; and although these, in common with all other human institutions, are subject to abuses, yet I view the legislative measures of 1818 as having an effectual tendency to remove those abuses, by placing the administration of the law in the hands of those who are the most frequent complainants on this subject, I mean the principal Proprietors and Occupiers of Landed Property.

This is to be done by adopting such of the provisions of the statute 59 George III. c. 12, as empower the inhabitants in vestry assembled, and voting according to the gradations of property prescribed in the 58th George III. c. 69, to

appoint a select vestry for the care and management of the concerns of the poor in every parish. Those active and intelligent Members of the Committee which introduced this law, considered the power of discrimination in the distribution of relief given by it as effecting an important change in the administration of the poorlaws I consider it further, if properly reduced to practice, as capable of removing that great objection which esteemed it as incompatible with the discriminative exercise of Christian charity. It is my humble endeavour to suggest some practical applications, which may make of this law, (as admirably expressed by Sir Matthew Hale,)" a pillar whereunto to fasten our charity." These powers of discrimination are contained in the first and second clauses :

"Every such select vestry is hereby empowered and required to examine into the state and condition of the poor of the parish, and to inquire into and determine upon the proper objects of relief, and the nature and amount of the relief to be given, and in each case shall take into consideration the character and conduct of the poor person to be relieved, and shall be at liberty to distinguish in the relief to be granted between the deserving and the idle, extravagant or profligate poor; and such select vestry shall make orders * Courtenay, page 124.