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2015Dublin Mansion House Committee for Relief of
Distress in Ireland.

REPORTS

ON THE

CONDITION OF THE PEASANTRY

OF THE

COUNTY OF MAYO,

IN 1 8 8 0.

BY

J. A. FOX,

A MEMBER OF THE COMMIT T E E.

THIRD EDITION.

DUBLIN:

BROWNE & NOLAN, PRINTERS, NASSAU-STREET.

1881,2>a^

r

CONTENTS.

PAGE.

Preface. — The object of the Reports—Report of
Mr. W. E. Forster in 1847, and observations of
Mr. J. H. Tuke in 1880, compared—Arthur Young's
" Tour in Ireland" a hundred years ago—The con-
dition of the Western Coast and Islands, the fame
now as then........5

Mansion House Fund.—Freedom from abuse in dis-
tribution of—Deficiencies in the Poor Law System—
Fever—Destitution—General Wretchedness of the

Protestant Clergy.—Cordial co-operation with Ca-
tholic Priests—Unimpaired honesty and good conduct
of the starving poor—Their industry—Practical in-
utility of the Baronial Relief Works * . .15

Absentee Landowners.—Vast acreage and considerable
rental of a few—Chief Justice Blackbuine on the
great social and political evils arising out of the
system of absenteeism . . . . . .19

Waste Lands.—Mr. Henry Brett's estimate of their
extent and value—Claremorris Union—Loans applied
for by Landowners mostly unexpended—Apprehen-
sions for the immediate future—Child life in Mayo . 26

Causes op the Distress.—Depreciation in value of
crops, and falling off in English wages—Testimony
of Mr. Edmund Pery, High Sheriff—Conversations
with Sir Charles Knox-Gore, Mr. Joseph Pratt, of
Enniscoe, and the Bishop of Killala . . . .30

Destitution at Foxford.—Evictions—The class of
Landowners who commonly evict—Emigration not a
patriotic remedy—Are sheep and bullocks of more
value to the State than human beings ? . » . 34

FIRST REPORT.

Hovels of the Peasantry

9

SECOND REPORT.CONTENTS.

THIRD REPORT.

page:

Baronial Works.—Not generally in operation—Their
•insufficiency as a measure of relief—Comparative
insignificance of the sums voted for expenditure . 42

Out-door Relief.—Its inadequacy in a period of
exceptional distress—Reluctance of Irish Poor Law
Guardians to administer it—" A Political Question"—
Difficulties of the Local Government Board in the
circumstances—Proposal to admit the clergy to seats
at the Boards of Guardians.....46

Waste Lands Reclamation.—Abortive attempts at
legislation on the subject—William Ill's Dutch
Settlers—Archbishop Whately—Sir Robert Peel—

Lord John Russell—Letters from Mr. J. G. M'Carthy,
Ex-M.P., and the Bishop of Raphoe . . . .50

Alleged Density of Population, and numerical pre-
ponderance of children in Ireland as compared with
England and Scotland—Mr. Joseph Pim on the
Hon. Evelyn Ashley, M.P.—An unfounded popu-
lar tradition—Interesting statistics—Inconceivable
wretchedness of the children of the Jrish peasantry—
The unexplored barony—Physical degradation of its
inhabitants . . . . . . . . .54

PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMENT.

Speech of Mr. W. E. Forster (Chief Secretary)—In
favour of Union rating and out-door relief—His
opinion of Irish labourers in England and America—
Exclusion of the clergy from the Boards of Guar-
dians—Satisfactory result of the debate originated
by Mr. O'Connor Power, M.P. . . . . 57PREFACE.

The following Reports on the condition of the peasantry
of the County of Mayo during the late famine crisis,
have already been printed separately, in a more or less
imperfect form, by various newspapers. Considerable
attention has also been given to the subject in Parlia-
ment. They are now published together, for circulation
in a more complete form, by direction of the Mansion
House Committee.

It may be desirable to explain, that the primary
object of the tour of inspection which gave rise to
these Reports, was to ascertain the consequences that
might be expected to ensue in the West of Ireland,
of which Mayo may be considered a typical part,
should the subscriptions to the Relief Fund fail—as it
seemed at one time probable they would—before the
gathering of the harvest. In conducting this inquiry,
various collateral questions of importance came to the
surface for discussion, which the Committee had no
objection to see embodied in the Reports. It would
have been impossible, however, had it been even
necessary, to go more deeply into so many subjects
within the extremely limited time occupied by the
inquiry. This will account for the fragmentary and,
oftentimes, superficial manner in which some of them
are discussed.vi.

preface.

At the end of each Keport will be found a short
account of the discussion to which it gave rise, on the
occasion of its being submitted at a meeting of the
Committee; while at page 57 there is given a condensed
summary of the remarkable speech delivered in Parlia-
ment by the Chief Secretary (Mr. W. E. Forster),
when accepting, on the.part of the Government,
Mr. O'Connor Power's important resolution of the
13th • August, 1880, as regards the deplorable con-
dition of the Western Counties generally—a speech
replete with candour and good feeling.

The following extract from a Report of the right
honourable gentleman himself, dated " Galway, 25th of
First-Month, 1847,"—that is, rather more than three
and thirty years ago,—and addressed to the Society of
Friends in England, will be read with interest at the
present time :—

" I trust I'shall be excused," writes Mr. William Edward
Foestee, "if I express rny earnest desire that the members of
our Society may not consider that their duty to Ireland is
fulfilled, by their effort to meet its present necessity. Its
general and permanent condition is a subject in itself almost
too dreadful to contemplate. Famine is there no new cry; it
is a periodic disease; every year there have been districts where
has prevailed somewhat of that misery which now rules the
land. For a large portion of its population, all the great
purposes of existence are forgotten in a struggle with death."—
(Transactions of the Society of Friends, 1852, p. 160.)

An extract, from the pen of another English Friand,
of the same honoured Society, written not three and
thirty years ago, but rather in the year of grace, just
closed, 1880, may well give rise to some melancholyPREFACE.

Vli.

reflections also; inasmuch as it tends to show that
the destitute and degraded condition of the population
of certain Irish Counties has changed but very little,
if at all, during this rather considerable interval:—

"This townland of Meenacladdy," writes Mr. J. H. Tuke,
" stretches over a wide extent of wet bog-land, bounded on the
west by a wild rocky coast, against which the waves of the
Atlantic were dashing half-way up the cliffs in huge masses of
foam; on the other side the bog-larid extends towards the
mountains of Donegal, whose slopes were covered with the
snow recently fallen. Imagine, over this wild waste, little
dwellings scattered at wide intervals, some of rough stone
and some of mere peat sods, scarcely distinguishable from
the surrounding surface; add to this the blinding squalls of
sleet or enow which swept over it, and some idea may be gained
of the district we explored. A few of the dwellings were, of
course, on the roadside, but the access to many was over
the wet bog where there is no road. . . . Of the destitution
and misery found in these bog-dwellings, I feel, after a lapse of
twenty-four hours, that I can hardly bring myself to write. It
is not merely the unusual distress of to-day, arising from the
causes which I have enumerated, but the? every-day life, the
normal condition of hundreds, nay thousands, of families on the
west coast of Donegal, and of many other parts of the west of
Ireland, which oppresses me. But on this normal condition—
this every-day contest with existence and hardships—I must not
dwell here. The question involves considerations and issues too
vast for any hasty notes."—(A Visit to Donegal and Connaught,
in the Spring of 1880, p. 25)

But "what is perhaps even more remarkable, if not
more melancholy still; on the 5th of August last, a
Member of the Mansion House Committee, who is at
once a Landowner and a Land Agent, a Deputy
Lieutenant and an Official of the Crown, on being
asked to report to the Committee the condition nTPREFACE.

which he found the destitute poor of the Western
Coast and Islands generally, then lately visited by
him, produced from his pocket a volume of "Arthur
Young's Tour in Ireland," written more than a hundred
years ago, and having read a passage or two, concluded
by observing:—

" That, gentlemen, is a picture of the primitive misery of the
people throughout the wide district in question, which is as true
of them to-day as when Arthur Young wrote it. I can assure
you," he added, "that there has been no improvement of any
kind. Even the very implements of their labour [fishing] are
the same."

It may serve for the information of the reader to
add, that Mayo is an extensive maritime county, having
an Atlantic Coast line of 250 miles, which is diversified
by numerous bays. The area comprises 497,587 acres
of arable land, 800,111 of uncultivated land, 8,350
of plantation, 56,976 of water, and 848 devoted to
towns or villages; in all 1,363,872 acres. The valua-
tion is £315,725, and the population^ according to the
last Census, 246,030. The scenery is of the most varied
character, being remarkable for picturesque mountains,
romantic harbours, and lakes of unsurpassed loveliness.
But the beauties of nature, instead of lightening, only
serve, in the present circumstances, to deepen the
almost universal misery and wretchedness of the
unhappy population around.

Mansion House, Dublin,

February, 1881.FIRST REPORT

(Submitted at the usual Meeting of the Committee held on the
3rd July, 1880).

I have the honour to report that, having arrived in Mayo
on the 25th ultimo, in obedience to a resolution of the
Mansion House Committee, I have since made such
inquiry in and inspection of the northern district as has
satisfied me that the funds entrusted to the various Sub-
Committees, in that part of the county, have been well and
properly distributed.. Everywhere, throughout an area
extending over some three hundred square miles, I have
found the books produced for my inspection voluntarily,
and kept with remarkable fidelity, recollecting the amount
of unpaid labour which is involved in their keeping.
Abuses in the distribution of relief there may have been
at an earlier period in the year, but such abuses, if they
occurred, were inevitable. And, on the whole, I have been
astonished at witnessing the pains which have been taken
to prevent them.

Such singular freedom from misapplication of the funds
may be due, in some measure, perhaps, to the fact that the
books containing lists of the destitute poor, and the
accounts generally, are virtually under the control, if not
always in the custody of the local clergy, who, as the des-
titution deepens in intensity, naturally become more and
more alive to the necessity for a strict economy in the dis-
tribution of relief amongst the most deserving objects of
charity only.

At Ballaghaderreen I found, to my regret, that the
Catholic Bishop, who is Chairman of our Committee there,
was absent, but his Administrator, the Eev. Mr. Stenson,
gave me most valuable assistance in his place. Typhus
fever had broken out, and had extended to some ten or

b10 j

twelve families altogether already. Here, as elsewhere^
the people were stricken with terror at the proximity of a
disease, accompanied by delirium in some of its stages,
which might have the effect of depriving them of the con-
solations of religion at the hour of death ; and had it not
been for some Sisters of Charity in the neighbourhood, the
dead might have been left without burial for an incon-
venient period. Two of those ladies had undressed,
washed, and coffined a destitute woman the day of my
arrival, carrying her remains into the street after extra-
ordinary labour. Theoretically, the Poor Law System is
supposed to provide for such an emergency, but practically
the poor fever patients who cannot be removed to the work-
house are barbarously allowed to die in their wretched
hovels without either nursing or attendance.

In the same manner the Poor Law system provides in
theory that no man shall die of starvation, while it will
be my painful duty now to report, on unimpeachable
authority, that many thousands of human beings would
have died of starvation during the past few months except
for the relief doled out to them by the various charitable
committees throughout North Mayo during that period;
and what the fate of this destitute population must be,
should our funds fail before the gathering of the harvest,
will be abundantly shown by my subsequent observations.
Many thousands of persons—men, women and children—
are wholly supported by the charity of these committees
throughout the wide area, extending from Ballaghaderreen,
in one direction, to Curry, on the borders of the adjoining
County of Sligo, on the other; and by another route, as
far as Attymas, Ballyhaunis, Foxford and Kiltymagh, &c.
The clearest and most convincing evidence has been laid
before me that it is to this source alone so many persons
are indebted for their existence to this date, and that if
the supply be - now suddenly cut off, they must inevitably
perish during the next six weeks.11

^Acting in the spirit of the resolution of the Mansion
House Committee, composed of gentlemen of various
politics and parties, I have been careful not to confine my
inquiries amongst any particular creed or class; while,
at the same time, I have taken the precaution of seeing
with, my own eyes many of the recipients of relief in their
miserable hovels, which, so far as I have yet observed, are
a shocking reproach to the civilization of the nineteenth
century. I have sometimes wished I were accompanied
by the Lord Mayor, or Archbishop Trench in my travels,
though I do not believe that tongue, or pen, however
eloquent, could truly depict the awful destitution of some
of those hovels. The children are often nearly naked.
Bedding there is none, everything of that kind having
long since gone to the pawn-office, as proved to me by
numerous tickets placed in my hands for inspection in
well-nigh every hovel. A layer of old straw, covered by
the dirty sacks which conveyed the seed potatoes and
artificial manure in the spring, is the sole provision of
thousands—with this exception, that little babies sleeping
in wooden boxes are occasionally indulged with a bit of thin,
old flannel stitched on to the sacking.

Men, women, and children sleep under a roof and within
walls dripping with wet, while the floor is saturated with
damp, not uncommonly oozing out of it in little pools.
In one case I asked a gaunt, starved looking man, whom I
found literally endeavouring to sleep away the hunger,
where his little children slept, when he pointed to a corner
in the moist room, in which I could see no sign of bedding.
" Do they wear their clothes at night ? " " No." " How
then do they keep warm ?" " There is," he replied, with
the most amazing simplicity and composure, "a deal of
warmth in children," signifying that they obtained warmth
by huddling together like little animals. This occurred at
Carrycastle, where I had for my companion the Kev. Mr.
Durcan. The construction and dimensions of their hovelsare, as abodes of human beings, probably unique. On th^
uplands they are mostly built of common stone walls with-
out plaster, and are often totally devoid of the ordinary
means of exit for the smoke, as it may also be almost said
they are devoid of anything in the shape of furniture. On
the low-lying lands, on the other hand, they may be briefly
described as bog holes, though by a merciful dispensation
of the architect, these are undoubtedly rendered somewhat
warmer by their very construction out of the solidified peat
and mud. Their dimensions are even more extraordinary
still, varying from 12 feet by 15 feet down to one half that
limited space. Yet all of them are inhabited by families
of children, numbers of whom sleep on a little straw
spread on the bare ground, with nothing to cover them
save the rags and tatters worn during the day. I invariably
found them on the occasion of my visits crouching around
the semblance of a fire, lighted on the open hearth. And
this at midsummer, shewing how terribly low must be the
vitality amongst them.

I refrain from describing more minutely the particular
cases of want and destitution which came under my notice.
I could not describe them, and any attempt of mine for the
purpose would fall far short of the reality. It was only
when I was accompanied by a Catholic priest I could get
an insight into their appalling character. Alone, some of
the most destitute tried to screen from me the poverty of
their truckle beds, upon which the straw was often so thin
that I could touch the bare boards with my hand. These
received me with a dull, passive surprise, wondering what
might be the object of my curiosity in so wretched a country.
And even the priest himself had occasionally to use no little
persuasion to overcome this modest feeling, by assuring
them that I was present in the capacity of a friend, only
desirous of ascertaining the extent of their poverty. Every-
where the condition of the children was otherwise dreadful,
besides, there being for them nothing but the Indian meal,13

badly cooked, to live upon, and the parents only too glad if
the charitable funds provided the family with half enough
even of that. Sometimes there was a miserable cow about
the premises—for, in every case, I am referring to the class
of small farmers, mostly residing on three to five acres of
land, which in North Mayo is generally found to be re-
claimed bog or mountain slope; and this cow was supplying
milk, principally gratis, to a small number of children other
than the owner's, to mix with the Indian meal. Occasionally
people appealed privately to my companion on no account
to cut off the charitable supplies from the possessor of the
cow, seldom worth more than a few pounds, and just then
unsaleable in any market, as the animal was the hope of so
many little ones. At other times cooked cabbage, without
a morsel of condiment save salt, was found where there
was no meal, and in some instances one was found mixed
with the other. But, in numerous cases, there was neither
milk, meal, nor cabbage about the premises, and in those I
gave some temporary relief, to fill up the interval till the
next general distribution of the Local Committee. Some-
times even charity itself had failed, and the mother of the
tender young family was found absent, beggingfortheloan of
some Indian meal from other recipients of charitable relief
—the father being in almost every instance away in Eng-
land labouring to make out some provision for the coming
winter. Yet in the most destitute cases hardly a word of
complaint was uttered on the subject, it being a habit with,
if not the nature of, the Mayo peasant submissively to
ascribe his lot in times of scarcity as well as plenty to the
" will of Providence."

Uniformly the Mansion House Committee is spoken of
with unvarying gratitude, which is all the more genuine
now that people know its funds are nearly exhausted. But,
without being invidious, it is only just to mention that the
efforts of the New York Herald Committee in behalf of14

the destitute children are also warmly appreciated. Mr. John
Barrett, the District Inspector of National Schools, to
whom I am indebted for much useful information, told n^e,
amongst other things, that the bit of dry bread given froin
that fund brought so many children to school that often in
the course of his inspection he could only obtain a way
through the crowd with difficulty. And here it becomes
necessary to explain that the frequent reference to children
occurring in these Reports, is only due to the circum-
stance of their being objects of so much compassion.
There is a kind of popular tradition that they must
somehow be greatly more numerous in Ireland than else-
where. It might be well, perhaps, for the Empire if it were
true—Ireland being less thickly populated than Belgium,
England, Italy, Germany, Holland, France, Switzerland, or
Austria. But, as a matter of fact, the tradition is an
unfounded one. The Census Returns; prove : (1) that the
proportion of the population who are married is smaller in
Ireland than in either England or Scotland; (2) that the
Irish do not marry at so early an age as the English and
Scotch do ; and (3) that the per-centage of natural increase
of population in the ten years ending 1871 was only half
as great in Ireland as in England.*

Of course the correspondence addressed to the Mansion
House daily for many months past reveals the opinions of
the Catholic clergy throughout North Mayo, as to the num-
ber of persons in their respective parishes who are in danger
of death from starvation, should charitable sources of relief
fail. All I can add is, with an intimate knowledgef of the
general tenor of that correspondence, that it is in nowise

* For statistics in disproof of the theory of density of population, and
the commonly alleged numerical preponderance of children in Ireland as
compared with England and Scotland, see page 54.

t For this, I am in some measure indebted to the untiring labours of
another Member of the Committee, Mr. Charles Bridgett, by whom, for
many months, the large correspondence received from our 800 Local
Committees was opened, coUated, and systematically arranged.15

exaggerated, and not seldom falls short of the reality. But
I xiiade it my duty to call on the Protestant clergy in every
dii crict where I could find them. The Rev. Canon Little,
who is rector of three parishes, has authorised me to say
that, in his opinion, two thousand people in the neighbour-
hood of his rectory, which is on the borders of Kilmovee,
are on the verge of starvation, and that any stoppage of
charitable relief before the harvest, must immediately pro-
duce what he described as a " catastrophe." The Eev.
Mr. Constable, Rector of Swinford, has pledged himself
to me in like manner as regards the still larger population
in that district; while the Rev. Mr. Costello, Rector of
Kilmactighe, assured me, after much deliberation, that at
least one hundred families, numbering perhaps six or seven
hundred souls, are slowly starving in his parish, as revealed
by their physical appearance from day to day, and that any
stoppage of charitable relief at this juncture would result
in their almost immediate death.

Invariably the Catholic priests speak with cordiality and
gratitude of the humane and disinterested co-operation of
the Protestant clergy, who are themselves suffering from
grievances of their own, in this time of trial; and I cannot
refrain from saying that when all the present misery and
wretchedness have passed away, they will at least have left
behind them many lasting friendships arising out of such
co-operation.

The testimony of a number of medical men I have seen is
substantially the same, amongst them Dr. Dillon, Ballagha-
derreen; Dr. Philips, Carrycastle; Dr. Burke, Kiltymagh;
and Dr. Conry, Swinford, a young medical officer of the
Union, who has entirely too much to do, pending the re-
covery from fever of another medical gentleman in the
district, considering the alarming spread of the disease in
and about Swinford. The Catholic clergy, to whom I am
indebted for so much valuable information, as well as fortheir indispensable company in visiting the hovels of the ^
destitute, are the Rev. Mr. Stenson, Ballaghadereen ; the
Rev. Mr. Durcan, Carryeastle; the Eev. Mr. Loftt s,
Charlestown; the Rev. Mr. Conlan, Swinford; and the
Yery Rev. Canon O'Donohoe, of Curry, on the borders of
Sligo county, a highly accomplished ecclesiastic, whose
testimony is very remarkable. Having observed that he
constantly spoke of the destitution as being extreme in the
Mayo parishes, and scarcely alluded to his own, in which I
thought I saw as much misery as elsewhere, I put him the
usual formula at parting, as to what might happen in certain
eventualities. He took off his hat for a moment, and, speak-
ing with great solemnity, declared "in the presence of*
Almighty God," that three hundred and fifty families in his
parish would die of starvation. At a place named Drim-
bane, within his district, in addition to the general wretched-
ness, for instance, several of the hovels-threatened to fall in
upon the occupants. In one case where the roof did actually
come down, a poor widow cowered disconsolately in a corner,
her only son being "booked," with a batch of migratory
labourers, for England on that very day. The impulse to
depart, like that of the swallow, appeared for a moment as if
it were irresistible. But ultimately the arguments of the
Rev. Canon prevailed, and the young man consented to
forego some important advantages to be derived-from
travelling in company, by remaining to improvise further
protection for his mother in his absence.

Yet, notwithstanding this desperate condition of things,
the police informed me that there was no crime, small or
great, in the district referred to, and a retired sub-inspector
of the force pointed out a large house in Bellaghy, filled
from floor to ceiling with the pawned goods of the poor,
which, he added, was not even protected by the presence of;
anyone on the premises at night* His information was
confirmed to me in a manner singularly interesting by17

Mrs. Little, the wife of the Rev. Canon Little already
referred to—a most benevolent lady—who assured me
vheir confidence in the population around them was of that
character, they did not trouble themselves to fasten the
rectory windows at night, or even, on all occasions, take
the common precaution of securing the doors. Such is the
unimpaired honesty and good conduct of this starving
people. Everywhere they are clamouring for work, the
women and children as well as the men, and force them-
selves on the baronial contractors in spite of them. In
several instances I saw boys and girls of tender years en-
gaged in breaking stones on the roadside—surely the least
likely work at which one would expect to find such persons
—and without even the wire gauze protection for the eyes,
so commonly worn by adults employed on similar labour
in England. In others, far more numerous, young girls
between the ages of 16 and 20 might be seen carrying
weighty* baskets of mould or sand on their backs for long
distances; in fact doing the work of cattle. But the
baronial works are absurdly limited in their scope, and
cannot furnish any substantial means of relief; while in
many cases the contractors being unable or unwilling to
pay the labourers at the end of the week, or even a fort-
night, the condition of the latter is more pitiable still,
inasmuch as their share of the charitable relief may have
been, as it sometimes has been, cut off in the meanwhile,
on the very natural supposition that they could be no longer
in need.

I made it my business to see two or three contractors in
person, to ascertain the truth or falsehood of such an in-
credible state of things. To secure perfect impartiality I
selected a Protestant contractor an$ two Catholic contractors.
The first, a Mr. Henry Stewart, near Ballaghaderreen, told
me that public report is only too true; but he had that day
(Saturday), out of regard for the destitute condition of the18

people, gone to the bank, and paid the wages of his work-
men out of his own pocket, though when he might be paid
himself he did not know. The second contractor was a
Mr. Donohoe, near Curry, also a highly respectable man,
who said that when the men first came upon some sanitary
works, in which he was engaged, seeing that they were not
able to work through want of nourishment, he arranged to
pay them in some cases daily in advance, and found that
they revived in a wonderful manner with the food which
they were able thus to obtain. The last was a contractor
near Swinford, who could not get his works " certified,"
and so could only pay some three out of twenty-two men
employed upon them. He endeavoured to obtain a survey
from me, but I had by this time convinced myself that as
an attempt to provide a substantial means of temporarily
relieving a destitute and starving people, the entire system
of baronial works, like the system of outdoor relief, of which
I shall have occasion to speak at greater length further on,
is an organised burlesque.

It is but right to say, however, that as far as Mr. Forster,
the Chief Secretary, himself is concerned, he is vindicating
his well-known character for personal and political sincerity.
At Carrick-on-Shannon, before entering Mayo, and every-
where in Mayo itself, I found proofs abundant of his efforts
to set the boards and public bodies in rapid motion. But
he is dealing with a number of machines running on parallel
lines, completely disjointed, which it is physically impos-
sible to make use of for any practical purpose in an
emergency like the present. As an example of the difficul-
ties of the Executive Government, it should be explained
that the Boards of Guardians are now being asked to hasten
the operations of the Baronial Sessions; but as the persons
composing the two bodies are in many instances—and in
those the most influential—.identical, they are far more
likely, and therefore more frequently, to be found acting the19

farce in concert than ranged in serious opposition. Both
have, in fact, a common interest in keeping down the Local
taxation no matter what the sacrifice. Important officials
and leading county personages, whom I am not permitted
to name as I have named others, are distinctly of opinion
that he should place a sufficient sum in the hands of our
well-organised and respectable committees, to provide the
destitute with immediate employment under the circum-
stances.*

That some of the smaller landowners are meanwhile
themselves very badly off, I had given me many touching
proofs; while few of the larger landowners have availed
themselves of the government offer of a loan, even where
they made a formal application for such, as published in
the newspapers some months ago. The same thing hap-
pened in 1847, as anyone who is familiar with the history
of the period must know; but it is no part of the duty of
my report to dwell upon or investigate the reasons, and so I
confine myself to stating the fact. Some of the landowners
are behaving nobly, as, for instance, Captain Armstrong,
who, in his capacity of Chairman of the Tubbercurry
Board of Guardians, is also Chairman of the Duchess of
Marlborough's Committee. This gentleman will not allow
any tenant on his extensive estate to accept charitable relief,
having provided them all with abundant employment, with-
out even troubling the Board of Works for the money.
Others, perhaps, are not behaving so nobly, as, for in-
stance, an absentee Irish peer, drawing £80,000 a year out
of the country, whose tenants are everywhere living upon
the Indian meal which we have had so much labour in col-
lecting from the four quarters of the globe. And it may
not be without interest to remark here, that five of the
largest Mayo landed proprietors are absentee gentlemen of
rank, whose estates alone extend over an area of 369,000

♦ For a fuller report as to the insufficiency (and practical inutility) of the
baronial works in a crisis like the present, see page 42.20

acres. The Parliamentary returns prepared by the Local
Government Board set forth the valuation of this vast
acreage, for taxation purposes, as £71,000, which probably
represents a rental of £100,000 a year; in other words, a
sum largely in excess of the total amount distributed
throughout the county by the various charitable organisa-
tions during the present crisis, and nearly a third of the
valuation of the whole of Mayo. And this, it is to be
remembered, merely comprises the property of a few of the
<5lass, since the county is interspersed with their estates,
numerous if smaller, in various directions. The late
Chief Justice Blackburne, while Commissioner of the
Insurrection Act, during several years in the South of
Ireland, gave evidence on this question before a Committee
of the House of Lords, which was never more applicable
than at the present moment:—

"As to the state of Ireland," observed that eminent judge,
" any view I suggest would be incoirtplete without stating the
effects of absenteeship. My opinion is that, independent of its
abstraction from the country of so much wealth [now commonly
estimated at £6,000,000 a year,] it produces great mischief to
the whole frame work of society; in Ireland, I may say, there is
the destitution, the want of a distinct class. In ordinary times,
the loss of influence and authority, and the control which belongs
to education, to rank, and to property, must be deeply felt in any
country; but when it becomes disturbed, I need not say that
that which would form the barrier for the protection of the
peace is lost in Ireland; and I have now been administering
the Insurrection Act in counties where the property of absentees
is extensive."

It is no more than stating a fact, provocative of no con-
troversy, to add, that the resident gentry of Mayo have
now, as was the case in 1847-8, not only no sympathy with
the absentee landlords, but that they would on the con-
trary, and for obvious reasons, gladly see the system
of absenteeism discouraged by the heaviest penalties
practicable.21

Many of the shopkeepers, as well as the landowners, are*
behaving with generosity in the present crisis, and it would
be very unjust to stigmatise either, as a class, with the want
of practical sympathy displayed by some.

The whole country is sown with potatoes and corn to an
extent never before remembered, and this is in some
measure due to the splendid gifts of seed and manure
bestowed on the people by the Catholic Bishop of Achonry,
Dr. M'Cormack, from the charitable funds placed in his
hands. The potato crop looks most promising, though the
corn has been a little shaken by the prevailing winds and
rains. But it is apprehended by all classes of people that
the claims upon the harvest are so numerous and heavy,
the fruits of it will not be available to the farmers beyond
a period of a few months, when the present condition of
things must recur, as it would require several prosperous
harvests to make up for the losses of the past three years.
At Swinford Quarter Sessions, the other day, there were
some two thousand processes entered, and it is said the
number might have been increased tenfold, if the shop-
keepers and landowners were as rapacious as they are often
represented to be. But the Judge adjourned the Sessions
till October on account of the fever, and has thus mercifully
secured the fruits of the harvest, in that district at least,
to many. Having taken occasion to inquire of some of the
shopkeepers how came it that they had entrusted persons of
such small means with so much credit, the answer was in-
variably the same ; it was because they had and have still
implicit confidence in the honesty of their customers.
The honesty of the Mayo farmers is invariably acknow-
ledged. It is stated, however, by the clergy, and generally
believed, that too many of them have to pay heavily for the
favour, which can scarcely be considered an advantageous
accommodation under the circumstances.

As to the question of fever, in addition to the cases^tfc22

Ballaghaderreen, there are some cases at Carrycastle, but
it is more widespread at Charlestown and Swinford. It iS'
undoubtedly typhus; yet, where the patients are able to
survive removal in an ordinary open cart, without springs,
to the workhouse, many miles off, they frequently recover
under the humane and skilful treatment which, it is but
just to say, they receive in the hospital attached. But still,
those who cannot be removed are barbarously left to die in:
their hovels without nursing or attendance, whether the
Poor-law system be responsible or not. Again, at Charles-
town, where accompanied by Mr. J. W. Mulligan, a kindly
member of the local Committee, I entered many of the
houses for the purpose of personally inspecting them, I
found that they had not been generally whitewashed either
inside or out, though typhus prevails there to an extent
sufficiently alarming. A gentleman connected with a
Dublin newspaper, the Freeman*s Journal, caught fever in
this place while engaged in the laborious, and, it would
appear, dangerous duties of a Special Correspondent. The
medical officer at Swinford meanwhile informs me that he
is watching two cases near Ballyhaunis which have all the
symptoms of what is technically called relapsing fever-
that is, real famine fever—those symptoms being vomiting,
diarrhoea, extreme prostration, with that pinched, anxious
look said to be so characteristic of the disease, and a
" thready " pulse, but without any spots as in typhus.
The number of cases of typhus itself in the workhouse
hospital is forty-six.

The Board of Guardians has been dissolved, with much
advantage to the poor, and even the baronial works are
being placed under inspectors, the contractors having been
abolished also in the neighbourhood of Swinford. Still,
the amount of money to be expended is wholly inadequate
as a means of substantial relief, and if gratuitous relief be
now substituted, the number and status, as well as the pay,23

of the relieving officers should be at once increased and
improved.

The Mayo farmers had to part with their pigs long ago,
and they have lately sustained a severe loss only second to
that of the potatoes, which I have nowhere seen noticed.
They were accustomed to keep large numbers of hens, whose
eggs, taken in exchange for other food by the shopkeepers,
helped materially to support their families. During the
past ten months, but particularly since January last, the
hens have been seized with an epidemic like cholera, and
fully 90 per cent, of them have succumbed to the disease,
which is fatal in a single night.

It is greatly feared that the people will, in their craving
for a change, as well as a sufficiency of food, dig up the new
potatoes before they have become fit for eating, and that
the result will bring a terrible scourge upon themselves as
well, which in their present exhausted state they would be
quite unable to resist. I drove twenty-two miles to a large
meeting of the Catholic clergy at Bohola, at the residence
of the Rev. Mr. Judge, on Wednesday last, upon whom, in
the course of conversation, I took the liberty of impressing
this fact, with a view to warn their people against such a
risk; but the general opinion appeared to be that the risk
will be run in spite of all warning, and it was even sug-
gested that the most destitute will ravenously feed upon
the potatoes a month before the usual time.

I have only to observe, in conclusion, for the informa-
tion of the Committee, that I returned to Dublin last night,
after exactly a week's travelling through a part of Mayo,
which is typical of a great portion of the county, as I
believed my report to be of much too urgent and important
a nature to be otherwise delivered; but I propose to return
to the county after a day or two, for the purpose of inspect-
ing and reporting upon other districts in obedience to the
resolution of the Mansion House Committee.24

The Lord Mayor said Mr. Fox's report was a most valuable
one, and disclosed a very deplorable condition of the country.
He suggested that a copy of it should be sent without an horr's
delay to the Local Government Board, asking them to take im-
mediate action in the matter. They had the promise of the
Chief Secretary, that the Government would go to any expense
to save life. Here it was not one life but several lives that were
in danger. Mr. Fox referred to the want of medical men. There
were numbers of medical men in this city from among whom
there could be no difficulty whatever in supplementing the
medical staff to any extent required, aud he thought they ought
forthwith to put the Local Government Board in possession of
the report, with a very strong suggestion that they should take
immediate action upon it.

Sir John Barrington moved that copies of Mr. Fox's report be
sent to the Chief Secretary and the Vice-President of the Local
Government Board, directing their attention especially to the
want of sufficient medical and nursing assistance.

Rev. Mr. Daniel suggested that they should add a recom-
mendation that a temporary hospital should be established in the
district, because they heard that most people brought to hospital
recovered, and it was the absence of a place to bring country
patients to that was most felt.

Mr. Fox said in Charlestown, for instance, there was no
reason whatever why they should not have had fitted up a tem-
porary hospital.

Mr. Charles Kennedy seconded Sir J. Barrington's resolution,
which was adopted.

Mr. Valentine Dillon asked why it was, seeing there was so
great destitution, that landlords declined to borrow the money
offered them by the Government for relief works ?

Mr. Fox said he did not wish to make any reflection on the
landlords, but what he had heard through the country was, that
some of them who had applied for money to the Board of Works,
on reflection (being really badly off themselves) thought that
perhaps the people might be kept alive without the works; and
they, the landlords, could not afford in many instances to impose
another mortgage on their property.25

Mr. David Drimmie asked how long would it be necessary
for the Committee to provide funds to keep the people alive in
tl 3 district ?

MY. Fox said in some cases three or four weeks was mentioned,
but he believed that the loth of August was about the period
when in that part of the county the potatoes would be
thoroughly fit for food, so that they had fully six weeks before
them.

Mr. Drimmie—And we have two weeks' provisions in hand!

Mr. Charles Bridgett said he understood Mr. Fox to say that
the harvest when gathered would be all consumed in debts.

Mr. Fox said the general impression through the county was,
that between the landlord and the shopkeeper the harvest would
have to be divided to a great extent; and that it would take at
least two good harvests more to raise the people out of the
helpless condition in which they were at present.

On being further asked by a member present to name one of
the absentee proprietors specially referred to in his Report,
Mr. Fox observed that it would be invidious for him to do so,
and he declined most emphatically to mention any landlord's
name, or to enter into any controversy whatever about land-
lords. He was opposed to it as a matter of duty and feeling
alike.

Colonel Davoren said, anything like a complaint with regard
to one landlord in a district would look like an attack on land-
lords generally, and would very much weaken Mr. Fox's
excellent Report. It was quite certain that several of the
landlords were themselves almost in a state of destitution. He
had great pleasure in moving that the warm thanks of the
"Committee be tendered to Mr. Fox, for his very valuable Report,
and that he be earnestly invited to continue his investigations
in other parts of the county of Mayo.

Sir George Owens cordially seconded the resolution, which
was passed.

c26

SECOND REPORT

(Submitted at the usual Meeting of the Committee held on thef
22nd of July, 1880).	k

I have the honour to report that, in obedience to a further
resolution of the Mansion House Committee, at their meet-
ing of the 3rd inst., I lately proceeded to Mayo a second
time, selecting a different part of the county, for the pur-
pose of inquiry and inspection, from that which occupied
my attention on the occasion of my former visit. At Bally-
haunis I had the advantage of meeting the Catholic Bishop
of Achonry, Dr. M'Cormack, to whose splendid gifts of seed
I referred in my previous report, and also Mr. Henry Brett,
formerly and for many years County Surveyor of Mayo, and
still holding the same important office in Wicklow County.
The Bishop, like every person of position whom I have yet
met, expressed it as his firm conviction that, were it not
for the merciful operations of the Relief Committees, many
thousands of persons must have died of starvation in North
Mayo alone during the past six months; and also that,
perhaps, even now, we may not be beyond the contingency
of a great calamity, arising out of various causes, such as
the still possible failure of the potato crop, the general
indebtedness of the small farmers to the landlords and the
shopkeepers, even if the crop should prove to be a bountiful
one, and the absence of useful or remunerative employment
for the people during the winter months, to enable them to
tide over their difficulties next year.

Mr. Brett is of opinion now, as in 1847, that public
employment should take the form of the reclamation of
waste lands, together with the encouragement of a better
system of husbandry amongst the small farmers; and I
understood it to be his intention to report to this effect to
the Government, by whom he is employed on special service27

in lyo at the present time. His facts and figures are of

paramount importance just now, since even a Land Bill,

fashioned upon the lines of the most pronounced reformers,

could not bring any immediate accession of prosperity to

a population wanting "elbow room," so to speak, and

suffering from chronic starvation in consequence of such

want. Speaking of the waste lands, he observed, that there

are at least four baronies in the West which might afford

scope for an early experiment in reclamation, not only

without pecuniary loss, but with infinite economic gain to

the State, viz.:—	Average value

per Acre.
s. d.

Erris (Mayo) ... 232,888 acres 1 1
Boylagh (Donegal)... 158,517 ,, ••• 1 3
Ballynahinch (Galway) 194,584 ,, ... 1 4
Boss (Galway) ... 98,000 ,, ... 1 5
Mr. Brett, whose long connection with Public Works in
Ireland lends the weight of practical experience to his
opinion, is clearly convinced that the whole of this enor-
mous acreage, which includes neither deep bog nor mountain
top, is capable of complete reclamation. And, moreover,
he can point out, he says, "numerous instances in the
counties of Mayo and Sligo, as well as in Wicklow and
Waterford, of reclamation effected at considerable expense,
where the produce of the lands in two years defrayed the
entire cost of outlay."*

There has been destitution and privation in the neigh-
bourhood of Ballyhaunis, Knock, and Claremorris, as
elsewhere, but the squalor and misery are not so wide-
spread as in the Swinford district. At Claremorris I visited
the Workhouse, accompanied by the Medical Officer, who
showed me over the entire place, including the Fever
Hospital, in which I was glad to find no more than two
patients, one of whom was convalescent, and both techni-

* For an historical summary of the abortive attempts to legislate on the
"Waste Lands Question, see page 50.28

cally described as cases of " simple continued fever." ie
Workhouse is well kept, and as the Guardians have-sup-
plied lime for white-washing purposes gratis throughout
the Union, where required, it may be that this freedom
from fever is due to such sanitary precautions. The Union
is supplied with an ambulance, old fashioned, but not un-
comfortable, and the employment of nurses to attend the
destitute fever patients in their own houses, where they
are incapable of the fatigue of removal to the hospital, has
been formally authorised when necessary.

The Clerk of the Union favored me with some statistics
which will be of interest to the Committee. The number
in the house is only 169, but the number on out-door
relief has increased from 192, as it stood last year, to 588,
as it stood on the 5th June last. The amount of relief
given is, however, extremely small, varying from one and
sixpence to three and sixpence weekly for each family.
Again, in the single electoral division of Murneen, where
our Local Committee is relieving 300 families, the Guar-
dians are only relieving four. Amongst the remaining
statistics furnished me by the Clerk of the Union, I find
what I anticipated in my previous report, that there is
the greatest disparity between the amounts applied for by
way of public loan, and the amounts finally issued, whether
as regards the landowners' private purposes, or as regards
the baronial works. In Claremorris Union, for instance,
of the £10,970 applied for by the landowners, only £2,780
was actually issued up to the 5th of June, an amount not
likely to be increased, since the low rate of interest offered
by Government is no longer available. And of the £2,409
applied for, for expenditure on baronial works, only £920
had been actually issued to the same date.

From Claremorris I drove to the residence of Mr. Arthur
Crean, J.P., Chairman of the Board, and a landowner,
who received me with the same courtesy, and even cor-
diality, which I have experienced at the hands of all classesw

in Miayo in the course of my inquiries. Mr. Crean was
riot in the least reticent in furnishing me with fresh proof
as to the terrible nature of the crisis through which we
are passing. This gentleman frankly acknowledged that,
though his Board had been steadily increasing the quantity
of out-door relief since February last, thousands of persons
must have died of starvation throughout the Union but for
the help afforded by the Relief Committees, the Poor Law
machinery being, in his opinion, incapable of dealing with
any such widespread and exceptional destitution. The full
weight of this testimony can only be estimated relatively,
as regards the county generally, by recollecting my previous
observation as to the fact that the squalor and misery
around Claremorris were not so apparent to me as in other
districts. Like the Bishop of Achonry, and for the same
reasons, Mr. Crean cannot altogether free himself from
gloomy forebodings as regards the immediate future, should
nothing in the shape of public employment be found for the
destitute population during the coming winter.

At Claremorris, as at Ballaghaderreen and Swinford,
something like vitality is maintained amongst the convent
school children, by the indefatigable exertions of the Nuns
in supplying them with food and clothing, in contrast with
the sad appearance of those in the ordinary roadside schools,
often greatly and unhealthily overcrowded, whose wan and
pinched countenances betoken their half-starved condition.
On the road to Mr, Crean's house, on a Sunday evening,
I saw some Mayo children at play for the first time, other-
wise I cannot recollect seeing a smile on a child's face
throughout my three weeks' tour in the county.

At Attymas I made a house-to-house inspection through
a very wretched mountainous district, where the destitution
was in several cases so urgent, I had to relieve them then
and there with my own hands. The Parish Priest, the
Rev. Mr. O' Grady, showered blessings on the heads of
Miss Hort, of the Duchess of Marlborough's Committee,so

and Mr. Edmund Pery, a local landowner, and High Sheriff
of the county, whose benevolence has passed into a proverb.
Miss Hort had undertaken to collect money from English
friends to provide his poor people with a fresh supply of
hens; while Mr. Pery had, some time before, amongst
other good things, not only presented him with a free site
for one of his schools, but contributed £10 to form the
nucleus of a fund for its erection. This gentleman being
a member of our local Committee, I felt it my duty to
call upon him. His testimony was substantially that of
others, with this gratifying addition, that having often-
times investigated cases of alleged abuse in the distribu-
tion of the Mansion House Fund, he could never find
a single one verified. The condition of the people of
Mayo, owing to a variety of causes, was always precarious,
he said, and the first touch of misfortune placed them on
the very verge of starvation. Last year, he went on to
observe, they were visited by a series of misfortunes,
namely, a continued failure of their crops including that
of flax, and depreciation in the price of stock, together
with a falling off in the supplies usually furnished by em-
ployment in England; and lastly, an entire stoppage of
credit on the part of the banks and shopkeepers.

Of the misfortunes mentioned by Mr. Pery, it is instruc-
tive to point out that the depreciation in money value of
crops in Ireland in 1879 alone, as compared with 1878,
(itself, like the preceding one of 1877, a year in various
ways disastrous to agricultural interests,) is shown by the
Registrar General to amount to £10,014,788; of which the
loss on potatoes is reckoned at £4,238,484, the latter crop
being estimated at 22,278,520 cwts., as against a ten years'
average of 60,000,000 cwts. However widely diffused, such
a loss must have fallen with exceptional severity on Mayo,
since the peasantry had clearly suffered an additional loss of
£100,000 during the year of 1879, as compared with 1878
(which was also a bad year in the labour market), by the31

falling off in English wages, as estimated by Dr. Neilson
Hancock.

At Backs the destitution partakes of much the same
extreme character, whole families trying to eke out an
existence on a single acre of wretched land, lying in patches
amongst boulders of various sizes, which often conceal the
village hovels even at a short distance. Here, too, I found,
on some of the smallest of small farms even for Mayo, un-
happy cases requiring immediate relief, while the kind of
sleeping accommodation available for young and innocent
children, was too shocking to examine minutely. Every-
where around there is the loveliest scenery, and everywhere,
also, alas! misery and wretchedness indescribable, and
wholly out of sympathy with the beauties of a district
singularly favoured by nature.

At Castlebar I called on the Very Eev. Canon M'Ghee,
P.P., and the Eev. Mr. de Burghe Sidley, the Protestant
clergyman, both of whom testified as to the fearful con-
sequences which must have ensued but for the operations
of the Relief Committees around that district. Mr. Sidley,
like Mr. Brett, entertains strong convictions as to the
desirability of reclaiming the waste lands, which he has
frequently urged in the public press; while Canon M'Ghee
instanced the clamours of the people about him for em-
ployment, by relating how numbers of women even came
with hammers to force themselves upon the baronial works.
This gentleman, in conjunction with his fellow-members,
had taken the precaution, as far back as February last,
to call in the services of the Relieving Officers of the Union,
for the purpose of preparing a tabular statement shewing
the number of cattle, sheep, pigs, &c., held by each in-
dividual within the area covered by the operations of our
local Committee, with a view to enable the latter to exercise
the utmost possible discrimination in distributing relief.
The authentic information thus obtained, which I had given
me an opportunity of examining for myself, entirely sur-32

passed their very worst anticipations. The small farmers
around, it was shown, had been gradually compelled by
their extreme poverty to part with everything in the shape
of saleable stock with few exceptions.

Here, too, I was introduced to Sir Charles Knox-Gore,
Foreman of the Grand Jury, and a large landowner, who
spoke to me in the frankest manner as to the perilous time
over which we have passed. He, like Mr. Edmund Pery,
volunteered the statement that, in his experience, every
case of alleged abuse in the distribution of the Belief Funds
vanished into thin air on investigation. Sir Charles
thinks a supreme effort should me made to keep the Funds
going until the 15th of August, before which date the
potatoes will be quite unfit for human food. On asking him,
at parting, for leave to make use of this conversation, he
added, with some emphasis, that the Belief Committees had
not alone saved the peasantry from starvation, but also the
landlords themselves from " most serious difficulties/'—a
remark which scarcely requires amplification just now. At
Castlebar, also, I called on Mr. James Daly, the proprietor of
the Telegraph, an active member of our local Committee in
that town, and much regretted not to have found him at
home, as he is said to be in a position to supply valuable
information as regards the condition of the people. Both
Sir Charles Gore and Mr. Standish M'Dermott, ex-
Chairman of the Swinford Board of Guardians, invited me
to call upon them for further conversation, should I be
remaining longer in the country, but the time at my dis-
posal was limited, and caused me to lose this opportunity
of acquiring additional information from gentlemen of their
station.

From Castlebar I proceeded to Crossmolina, where I
again made a house-to-house inspection throughout a
twenty-two miles' drive. Everywhere I saw evidence of
great destitution, though not so extreme as I had witnessed
in some other districts. And this makes the evidence of33

the Parish Priest, the Rev. Dr. Costello, and that of
Mr. Joseph Pratt, of Enniscoe, the heir to considerable
-estates in this and a neighbouring county, the more remark-
able. I missed seeing* the Protestant clergyman, upon
whom I called, and who is working cordially with the
Catholic priest, but, as Mr. Pratt is a Protestant gentle-
man, the evidence of two such independent witnesses may
be considered sufficiently impartial and conclusive. It is
to the effect that the scenes of 1847, well remembered by
Dr. Costello, and often described to Mr. Pratt by his
father, might have been repeated as early as February in
the present year, but for the Eelief Committees, and pri-
marily here, as elsewhere, but for the Mansion House
Committee.

Sir Charles Gore, who, in his capacity of Chairman of
the Board of Guardians, is also Chairman of the Duchess
of Marlborough's Committee in Ballina, advised me at
parting to trust implicitly to Mr. Pratt, who is himself a
Grand Juror of the county, a Poor Law Guardian, and an
active member of the same Committee. The Catholic
Bishop of Killala, Dr. Conway (Chairman of our local
Committee,) upon whom I called to pay my respects, also,
like Sir Charles Gore, spoke in the most flattering terms
of Mr. Pratt, on account of the representations made to
him from time to time by his priests. The testimony of
such a man is, then, as important as any country gentle-
man's testimony can well be, and the entire purport and
substance of Mr. Pratt's lengthened conversations with
me was as strong, if not stronger, than that of any Catholic
priest or Protestant clergyman with whom I came in contact
throughout my travels in Mayo. He is most fully in accord
with the Rev. Dr. Costello as to the awful crisis through
which the country has been passing, and he, with much
feeling, expressed it as his firm conviction that deaths from
starvation may have occurred, and probably did occur at
Crossmolina, shortly after Christmas, in spite of all their34

precautions,—another proof that the operations of the
Mansion House Committee did not commence a day too
soon. Mr. Pratt is further of opinion that, however
abundant the harvest may be, it will be necessary to pro-
vide the people with public employment during the winter
months, to avoid a recurrence of the crisis next year;
and he also suggested that we should not break up our
Committee even when our funds fail, but that we should
maintain our organisation in Dublin for the purpose of
influencing the Government while any cause for anxiety
continues, as at present, to exist. I may add, that the
Bishop of Killala subsequently expressed to me similar
opinions, and I found him at the date of my visit anxiously
contending with the Local Poor Law Guardians for some
pittance in the shape of outdoor relief for the destitute poor,
his own charitable resources from America being then on
the point of exhaustion.

The last district of which I have to speak is Foxford,
where I received every possible assistance in my inquiries
from the Protestant vicar, the Rev. Mr. Eames, as well as
from Major Ruttledge Fair, a local landowner, both of
whom are acting in cordial co-operation with the Parish
Priest, the Rev. Mr. O'Donnell, who was unfortunately
absent during the period of my visit. In his absence, I
was accompanied in my house-to-house inspection by
another member of our Committee, Mr. Shiel, the Local
Registrar, for whose services I feel myself extremely
indebted. We visited more than thirty hovels of the poor,
principally in the townlands of Culmore and Cashel, in
which I beheld scenes of wretchedness and misery wholly
indescribable. In some of those hovels evicted families had
lately taken refuge, so that the overcrowding added to the
other horrors of the situation. In one hovel, in the town-
land of Cashel, we found a little child, three years old, one
of a family of six, apparently very ill, with no person more
competent to watch it than an idiot sister of eighteen:35

while the mother was absent begging committee relief,
the father being in England. In another an aged mother,
also very ill, lying alone, and unattended, with nothing
to eat save long-cooked Indian meal, which she was
unable to swallow. In another, in the townland of Cul-
more, there were four young children, one of whom
was in a desperate condition for want of its natural
food—milk—without which it was no longer capable
of eating the Indian meal stirabout, or even retaining any-
thing whatever on its stomach. I took off my glove to
feel its emaciated little face, calm and livid as in death,
which I found to be stone cold. My companion gently
stirred its limbs, and after a while it opened its eyes,
though only for a moment, again relapsing into a state of
coma, apparently. It lay on a wallet of dirty straw, with
shreds and tatters of sacking and other things covering it.
The mother was in Foxford begging for relief, the father
being in England in this case also. In no Christian country
in the world probably would so barbarous a spectacle be
tolerated, except in Ireland.

It is but right to add, that the mother of one of the
evicted families, whose husband was in England, acknow-
ledged with much gratitude some assistance which she had
received from the funds of the Land League. And, speak-
ing of evictions generally, they are everywhere frankly
acknowledged to be the work, not of the old hereditary
landowners, but more commonly of those newcomers who,
having purchased land in the Encumbered Estates Court
as an investment, are devoid of any sentiment save that of
a desire for a profitable return for their money; though of
course there are exceptions, and even notable ones, amongst
both classes. One of the most notable, for instance, is an
absentee peer, whose harsh and somewhat capricious pro-
ceedings against his tenantry are, I have it on the best
authority, at the present time a source of constant vexation
to the High Sheriff of the county.36

Meeting Captain Spaight, Poor Law Inspector, at
Foxford, on my return, he begged it as a personal favour
that I would report to him what I might see wrong in my
travels through the country. I at once gave him the con-
tents of my note book; but with the distinct intimation
that I should here publicly charge the Poor Law System
with culpable negligence, and a clear evasion of the Act of
Parliament, in*not making proper provision for the prolonged
absence of the Dispensary Doctor at Foxford. I say
"proper provision," because the calling in of another
medical man, from a remote Dispensary district, ten miles
off, alone probably too large and too populous to receive
sufficient attention at his hands, does not constitute any
such provision. Captain Spaight, who appears to be very
earnest in the attempt to discharge his duties, offered to send
milk to the village next morning; but as I had already
secured those cases temporary relief at my own hands, I
intimated further to him that medical attention, rather
than milk, was now urgently required, though not to be
had. The Registrar of Foxford informed me that the
number of persons actually in, or recovering from fever in
the neighbourhood, is at present thirty-five, yet not the
slightest effort has been made, up to the present, to white-
wash or otherwise disinfect the tainted houses.

Emigration is proceeding rapidly in Mayo, especially
amongst the class of single young women. From the parish
of Charlestown alone more than eighty had gone, up to the
middle of June, in the present year, while from Backs more
than a hundred have left to this date. Persons in America,
who had not been heard of for many years, are now moved by
reports of the famine to send money for their friends to
enable them to emigrate. The total number of emigrants
of all classes from Mayo in 1879, the previous year, was
1,605. And here the question arises, is there no bene-
volent organisation in existence for the protection of the
more defenceless class of young people at Liverpool and37

elsewhere, on their journey to their new and distant home ?
Surely the good work done by Mrs. Caroline Chisholm in a
past generation should now inspire some amongst her own
sex, if not others, to emulate her fame as the " Emigrant's
Friend."

Fortunately, the crops have not yet been seriously affected
by the heavy rains, though the blight is apparent in many
places sown by the old seed-potatoes. I had some dug for
inspection at Crossmolina, and cutting through the root with
my penknife, found the disease distinctly marked. But
there is much confidence that the Champions will escape,
for even the stalks resist those strong winds to which those
of the other seeds succumb. Elsewhere, as at Crossmolina,
the affected potatoes were described as " Pink Eyes," but it
is greatly feared that White Eocks, so called, have been
imposed upon the peasantry as Champions in many cases.

Passing on to the subject of relief works, I have every-
where found them fitful, wholly insufficient, and otherwise
unsatisfactory, as explained in my previous Report. Having
a few hours to spare at Athlone, on my way home on
Sunday last, I visited the Vice-Chairman of one of our
Local Committees, St. Peter's and Drum, who told me
that in his district the contractors could not get their works
"certified," and so the unfortunate labourers employed
upon them were without their wages, while the works were
themselves stopped. Yet it is only just to the Government
to say, that they are sending many additional officers
through the country, to try and facilitate matters, but there
is apparently no fixed plan in their operations; while the
local bodies are everywhere confused and undecided, or
unwilling, in voting additional funds for expenditure.
Meanwhile there is unlimited scope for road-making in
Mayo, for nowhere else, perhaps, are the public highways
so dangerous to life and limb. Yet, at best, even this can
scarcely be described as work of a reproductive character,38

or of permanent utility. Indeed, many of the baronial
works which I saw in operation, in the shape of bog road
fences, , would scarcely withstand a sharp rain-storm, which
would speedily reduce them to their original elements of
peat and mud. On the other hand, what might be done in
the way of reclaiming waste lands is often visible to the eye
as well as to the imagination. In many districts through
which I travelled I saw patches of meadow and smiling
cornfields, where only a few years ago there was nothing
but savage bog and moorland.

The great evil of the times in Mayo is not the question
of rent, but rather the circumstance that the holdings of
the small farmers are deficient in quantity as well as quality.
How can a family, little or big, be expected to exist, not to
say prosper, on farms, many of which are no larger than
a good sized English garden ? The land, too, where it is
not imperfectly reclaimed bog, is often of a worse character
still, in many instances admitting of spade labour only, in
consequence of the large stones embedded in the soil. So
that if it were even free of rent altogether, human existence
would yet be an impossible condition under such circum-
stances. This it is that necessitates the annual flight to
England, an evil in itself, to enable them to eke out even
a miserable existence on their return. If it could be
remedied without injustice to "vested interests/' you
might have a prosperous and contented peasantry, instead
of one whose present condition is a scandal to the Empire.
Plans, proposals, or even speculations in reference to land
reform would be entirely out of place in these Reports.
Yet as several English newspapers, and English Members
of; Parliament speaking in public, have done me the honour
to quote various passages from the editions already pub-
lished, there is no impropriety in my suggesting that
emigration can scarcely be deemed a patriotic remedy for
the condition of things which I have attempted to describe.39

The Queen has surely enemies enough in the United States
of America, and elsewhere, already—enemies burning with
the desire for a declaration of war against her Empire.
There are thousands and tens of thousands of acres of good
land in Mayo itself, the property of absentee landlords,
frequently extending like a wilderness far beyond the
horizon, and only inhabited by sheep (or bullocks), which
contribute nothing to the Imperial Treasury, consume no
British manufactures, and are incapable even of defending
the Crown in an emergency. Nor are they any longer, in
the face of foreign competition, an indispensable commodity
as an article of food. Ajax was certainly mad when
he mistook a flock of sheep for his enemies. Yet the
Mayo peasant, haying such a prospect daily before his eyes,
must often envy, if he do not hate, the animals feeding on
this rich pasturage, while he and his are condemned, as it
were by some inexorable law, to occupy only the almost
barren and almost uncultivable lands in the adjacent
district.

To render the condition of those who are really destitute,
less degraded, some modification of the existing Poor Law
System is obviously necessary. The adoption of the prin-
ciple of Union Eating as in England, would have a most
beneficial effect, inasmuch as it would tend to promote an
extension of that out-door relief eo sorely needed, yet so
much more restricted in Ireland. And if a number of the
local] clergy were admitted to seats at the Boards of Guar-
dians, in virtue of their office, their presence could scarcely
fail to diffuse amongst that important body somewhat more
of kindly consideration for the sad misfortunes of the
destitute and deserving poor. The smallness of the amount
of Poor Law relief distributed in Ireland as compared
with England is not generally known. In 1878, 85,000
persons only were relieved in Ireland, at a cost of £990,000,
while in England, 748,000 persons were relieved, during40

the same period, at a cost of £7,688,000. Taking the
population of Ireland at one-fourth of that of England, it
will be seen that the Poor Law relief distributed in Ireland,
the poorer country, is not one-half what it is in England,
the richer country.*

In conclusion, I have to report that I have everywhere
found the books of the Local Committees kept with scrupu-
lous exactness, and the utmost possible discrimination
used in the distribution of relief. I was only once called
upon to investigate a complaint, which was made to me by a
shopkeeper at Swinford, to the effect that the Catholic and
Protestant clergy had thought fit to employ a paid secretary,
at wages of 15s. a week. Believing the complainant's in-
tention to be one of pure benevolence, conceived in the
interests of the poor, I proposed to call a meeting of the
Committee at once, dismiss the paid official, and appoint
the shopkeeper himself honorary secretary on the spot.
The proposition alarmed him; he excused himself, and I
was suffered to go in peace. I may say that the destitute
population of Swinford is enormous, numbering about
9,000; that the Catholic priests and the Protestant rector
are rivals in one respect only, as to who shall excel the
other in kindness to the poor, though of course here, as
elsewhere, the greater weight of the labour of relief
naturally falls to the former; and that even the appoint-
ment of paid secretary, which was indispensable, was
conferred upon the present holder of the laborious office
as a matter of business in which charity had some part.

I am much indebted to the Eev. Mr. Conmey, P.P., of
Backs, the Eev. Mr. O'Donohue, C.C., of Ballyhaunis,
and, in an especial manner, to the Very Be v. Canon
Bourke, P.P., of Claremorris, for assistance and useful
information. On this occasion I have not found it neces-

* For a practical illustration of the repugnance of the Irish Poor Law
Guardians to the distribution of out-door relief, see page 46.41

sary to trouble the police with my inquiries; but I have
ascertained from the clergy and magistrates that the peace
of North Mayo continues unbroken, while the honesty of
the starving peasantry is the theme of every tongue. * I now
invite the members of the Committee to question me upon
any point of interest in my Report, so as to afford me an
opportunity of verifying my statements by referring to the
authority upon which they are made.

The Lord Mayor (Mr. Edmund Dwyer Gray, M.P.) said, the
Committee must feel very much indebted to Mr. Fox for his
very able report. It showed a most lamentable state of things
in the County Mayo, but it also showed that the Local Com-
mittees were in excellent working order. He considered it a
most valuable report, and it would be well, too, as in the case of
the other reports, to forward copies to the Chief Secretary. As
to the absence of a medical officer from Foxford, would it not
be right to pass a resolution on the subject ?

Mr. Lane Joynt asked how far had the present doctor to travel
to visit Foxford, and what Union it was in ?

Mr. Fox—Swinford; the doctor has to come over ten miles.

Mr. Joynt considered that ten miles was too far; the sick
people might be dead before the doctor could arrive.

The Lord May or—Shall we pass a resolution about Foxford?

Mr. Adye Curran—We sent a grant the other day to Foxford.

Sir John Barrington—What can we do for Foxford ?

Mr. Curran—Rather, what will the Government do for it ?

I

The Lord Mayor moved a resolution, thanking Mr. Fox for
his report, and directing copies of it to be sent to the Chief
Secretary and the Vice-President of the Local Government
Board, calling their particular attention to the lamentable state
of affairs in Foxford.

The resolution was passed.

D42

THIRD REPORT

On the subject oj Baronial Belief Works, submitted at the usual
Meeting of the Committee, held on the 12th June, 1880.

I am desirous of bringing under the notice of the Com-
mittee some facts of an important character derived from
information lately supplied by our Local Committees in
Mayo and Galway as regards the public works either pro-
jected or in actual operation in those counties. On a
recent occasion I took the opportunity to cite the County
of Cavan as a typical illustration of what might be expected
from those works in the way of relief throughout the king-
dom. Instead, however, of confining myself to this, an
isolated case, I have now gone through the valuable returns
provided by Mr. Valentine Dillon from two of the largest,
and at the same time the most impoverished counties in
the West. Those returns exhibit the question as it stood
on the first of the present month, just twelve days ago,
and the result will show that no appreciable alteration has
taken place since.

We have sixty-four Committees altogether in Mayo, of
which all but a few have supplied us with the required
information. The total amount of money voted for expen-
diture within the wide area covered by those Committees
is £11,583, while the destitute population more or less
dependent on the Mansion House Fund for subsistence
within the same area is represented to be 171,493. Assum-
ing that this money was really expended, it would be
equal to an allowance of about one and fourpence to each
individual on the relief lists throughout the county. But43

as a matter of fact, in thirty-five—that is, rather more than
one-half—of the districts relieved by our Committees, no
such public works have been heard of at all; while in
twenty-six districts where the money was voted to set them
on foot, they had not, for one reason or another, even been
commenced on the 1st of June, on which date they were
really in operation in three districts in the county only, so
far as the information supplied to the Mansion House
enables us to judge. The sums being spent in a few
favoured districts are comparatively insignificant, as for
instance at Kilmaclasser, near Westport, where £64 is to
be distributed amongst a destitute population of 1,445 souls.
So much for Mayo.

Turning now to Galway, we have returns from seventy-
five out of our ninety Committees spread over that county.
The facts and figures are in a like manner equally disap-
pointing. The total amount of money voted for expenditure
within the area covered by those Committees is £18,360 9s.,
while the destitute population more or less dependent on
the Mansion House Fund for subsistence within the same
area is 182,732. If the money was really expended
amongst this population, the share falling to each indivi-
dual would be about two shillings, or some eight-pence
more than the portion of the destitute individual in the
adjoining county. But unhappily the story is just the
same in Galway as in Mayo. In forty-one—that is, rather
more than one-half—of the districts relieved by our Com-
mittees no public works have been projected at all; while
in twenty-seven districts, where the money was actually
voted for expenditure, the works in question had not been
even commenced on the 1st of June. The sums to be
expended in the few fortunate districts are often equally
insignificant in Galway as in Mayo, as for instance, at
Ann&ghdown, where £101 15s. is the portion of a destitute
population of 2,000 souls.44

But even those figures admit of a further qualification,
inasmuch as the works in question, which mostly consist
in making or repairing roads, are in many cases apparently
entrusted to contractors, who are often represented to us as
undertaking them at a price considerably below the sum
voted. Again, with regard to the projected works in both
counties which had not commenced on the 1st of June,
the reply of the Local Committees is often eloquent in its
hopelessness. In answer to the query, "When are the
works to be commenced?" it is sometimes merely observed,
" Cannot say; perhaps never." This was the case at
Ballindine, in Mayo, where £200 had been voted for
expenditure amongst a destitute population of 8,000. At
Cumner, in Galway, the patience of the Committee being
exhausted, the reply is, " The works won't commence till a
number of people have died of starvationwhile at Bel-
clare, in the same county, exasperated in like manner by the
delay, the Committee having informed us that the long-
expected employment had not commenced, add, 6< And
when it will be commenced is only known in Heaven and
to the Board of Works."

It has often been cynically observed that a man may
prove anything from statistics. I can only say, having
gone carefully through them, that the individual who could
evolve any degree of hope from these, would be, not a
man, but a magician. Even if the public works were in
full operation throughout the two Counties of Mayo and
Galway—and the information supplied by our Local Com-
mittees, show that such is the case within the limited area
of some nine parishes only—any hopes that may have been
raised as to the probability of their proving a source of
substantial relief in the present crisis, are wholly illusory
and without foundation. The returns from which I have
been quoting are not without their use, however, inasmuch
as they exhibit, in a very striking light, the wisdom of the45

Lord Mayor in refusing to adopt any course which might
lead to- a premature dissolution of the Mansion House
Committee.

The Lord Mayor said every credit was due to Mr. Fox for
the pains he had taken in bringing these very important facts
before them.

Sir George Owens said Mr. Fox was entitled to the cordial
thanks of the Committee for the results of his investigation.

Mr. Lane Joynt said that, while Mr. Fox's observations were
entitled to very great respect, every one acquainted with the
working of the Local Government of the country, and with the
mode of presenting at baronial sessions, knew from the earliest
part of the year that the expectation of public employment to
any great extent was utterly out of the question; firstly, because
of the paucity of the grants made at presentment sessions, and
secondly, because they were only made in portions of the barony
here and there, and could afford no relief except to people living
in the immediate vicinity of the works. Mr. Fox's statement
was an elaborate and ingenious exposition of the returns Mr.
Valentine Dillon had obtained, but he confessed the result was
a matter of no surprise to him.

Mr. Fox said the important thing for the Committee to bear
in mind was, that public works were not in operation, and,
moreover, there seemed to be no hope that they would be.
Meanwhile the Poor-law Guardians were not doing their duty
in the matter of out-door relief.46

OUT-DOOR Relief-

reluctance of irish poor law guardians to administer it.

As regards the inadequacy of the outdoor relief
administered by the Poor Law Guardians during the late

crisis, what occurred at W- affords a fair illustration

of their systematic illiberality in numerous Irish Unions.
The Chairman of the Board, a near relative and the repre-
sentative of an absentee peer, was by his position also
Chairman of the Duchess of Marlborough's Relief Com-
mittee. When the funds of the various Relief Committees,
began to run low, a joint resolution was agreed upon to
confine their operations thenceforward to the relief of the
small farmers, the sick or infirm, and the school children;
leaving the labouring or cottier class to be relieved by the
Guardians, under the provisions of a special Act of Parlia-
ment lately passed, with a view to lessen the strain upon the
charitable organisations, at one time responsible for the lives
of more than half a million of human beings. Upon its being
communicated by the Marlborough Committee to Lord——,
he at once resented it as an ijnwarrantable interference
with him, in his dual capacity, and proceeded to read both
the Duchess and her trustees a lecture on the subject more
pointed than polite:—

"I shall," wrote Lord-, " lay the printed circular of the

Duchess's trustees, relative to outdoor relief, before the head
Committee of this Union, but I must add that I shall urge that
body to abstain from interfering with the Board of Guardians
in the performance of the duties entrusted to them by the
Legislature, which is no business of our Committee. If the
trustees of her Grace's Fund think fit to lay down any rule for
the administration of the charitable fund at their disposal,
such as defining the classes to whom assistance is to be given,
I shall do what I can to carry out their wishes. But with all
courtesy, and I hope without offence, I must observe that the47

question of outdoor relief, as opposed to indoor relief, is made
in Ireland a purely political question, and is totally unconnected
with the administration of the charitable fund confided to their

charge. The W--Board of Guardians never refuse

admission to the house to any applying for it, and I think they
are and must be better judges of the condition of this union
and the best mode of dealing with it than the Duchess's
trustees."

Here then we have it on record that one species of relief
to which the destitute poor are entitled by law was not
available, " because it was purely a political question,"—
whatever that may mean—and that the other form of
relief, which was available, viz., admission to the Union
Workhouse, is of a character that the Irish cottier will
commonly suffer the most terrible privations, and oftentimes
even death itself, rather than submit to the removal from
his cabin—wretched though that be—which is a condition
of its acceptance.

The Mansion House Committee, in pursuing the same
necessary policy, endeavoured to starve some of the more
niggardly Guardians into submission, by cutting off
the charitable supplies altogether. Immediately two
deputations arrived in Dublin from, amongst other places,

W-, one Catholic and the other Protestant, to implore

of us not to persist in such a policy, which, while it would
certainly, they urged, not have the effect of starving
Lord-, must inevitably result in the absolute starva-
tion of hundreds of unhappy families already on the very
verge of starvation. In this dilemma a reference was
made to the Local Government Board for assistance ; but
the latter had no power to interfere, though very willing to
do so, inasmuch as they were precluded from compelling
the Guardians to distribute outdoor relief so long as the
objects of it were actually in receipt of relief from the
charitable funds. In other words, the poor were, under48

the circumstances, technically, or in legal phrase, not
" destitute," according to the Act of Parliament.
The Local Government Board could, indeed, dismiss
refractory Guardians whose notions of Poor-law relief
were confined to the strictest economy in its
administration, and appoint paid officials, ad interim, in
their place, for the mere perfunctory distribution of public
charity, as they had already actually done in three instances,
in the county of Mayo alone, during the present crisis.
But their dismissal in this instance would practically
involve the very proximate danger of dismissal to another
world of the unhappy destitute poor, since it would be
difficult to get the new machinery into sufficient working
order in time to provide for such a grave emergency.

Of course the Mansion House Committee gave way
under the circumstances, though it was very mortifying
to be obliged to do so, as the Lord Mayor was then
anxiously casting about him for some expedient to raise
fresh funds, with a view to keep the destitute population
alive for months yet to come. Fully appreciating the
gravity of the situation, the newly appointed Lord
Lieutenant (Lord Cowper), and the Chief Secretary
(Mr. W. E. Forster), about this time contributed very
handsomely, and entirely without solicitation, to the
Mansion House Fund; while the Catholic Archbishop of
Tuam forwarded—also without solicitation—the munificent
sum of £3,000 from the charitable American money then
remaining in his hands. These three timely gifts, together
with some outstanding balances still arriving from the
Australian Colonies, which subscribed in all £95,000,—
in great part subsequent to an earnest personal appeal,
telegraphed by the Lady Mayoress (Mrs. Edmund Dwyer
Gray),—happily tided us over the difficulty.

Lord-meanwhile remained master of the situation,

having even resigned his connexion with the Marlborough49

Committee rather than be persuaded to avail himself of
the provisions of the Act of Parliament, and his more
important absentee principal thus escaped one at least
of those " most serious difficulties" referred to by
Sir Charles Knox-Gore,—himself a good resident land-
lord,—viz., a substantial impost on his rental in the
shape"bf additional poor rate. But this only gives rise to
the inquiry, why absentee landowners, who have brought
so much unmerited odium on the landlord class generally,
should not be made to pay the whole instead of, as at present,
the half of the poor-rate levied within the area of their
extensive estates ? And it suggests another question,
equally within the domain of practical politics,—Is there
any assignable reason why the clergy should not be
admitted to the Boards of Guardians, as in England ?
It may be safely assumed that if the benevolent Protestant
Archdeacon and energetic Catholic Parish Priest of W —

were members of that Board, Lord-'s appeals to the

cupidity of his colleagues would have proved futile in the
face of an enlightened public opinion, when human lives
were at stake. The clergy are, by virtue of their sacred
office, the natural guardians of the poor, and if any proof
were needed that they discharge the duties of their guardian-
ship with fidelity, it may be found in the archives of the
various relief Committees during the late famine crisis.
It is singularly infelicitous, then, to say the least of
it, to exclude them, of all men, from taking their proper
place at the Poor-law Boards throughout the country, as in
England.50

WASTE LANDS' RECLAMATION—

abortive attempts at legislation on the subject.

Throughout the history of Imperial legislation for
Ireland there is, perhaps, no other instance of a public
work of such obvious importance, recommended with so
much authority, as the reclamation of waste lands, which
has been again and again overlooked as though by a decree
of fate. Legislation on the subject has at various times
been advanced a stage, two stages, and even three stages,
but always with the same result, to return to its authors
like the labour of Sisyphus. " Give us," said William
Ill's Dutch settlers, " our own law of empoldering, and
we will reclaim the Bog of Allen." But their request was
unheeded, and the bog still lies unreclaimed. In 1782, a
Bill for the Reclamation of Waste Lands was carried through
both houses of the Irish Parliament; but the indispensable
sanction of the Crown was refused. In 1815, a Parliamentary
Commission, composed of Mr. Nimmo, the celebrated Scotch
engineer, Mr. (afterwards Sir Richard) Griffith, and other
men of distinction, reported in favour of a scheme of
reclamation, after an inquiry extending over several years,
and personally visiting nearly every county in Ireland;
but nothing came of it. Fifty years ago a Bill on the
subject passed three readings in the British House of
Commons, two readings in the House of Lords, was
referred to a Committee of Peers, was reported on
favourably, and yet did not become law. Archbishop
Whately next took up the question, energetically as was
his wont, in 1836, got a Commission appointed to deal with
it, obtained from that body a favourable report, and still
the fates prevailed. Mr. George Poulett Scrope, M.P.
for Stroud, a distinguished geologist, and writer on social51

Reforms, devoted a considerable portion of his Parliamentary
life to advocating the desirability of reclamation, with a
pertinacity worthy of success, but all in vain. In 1842,
Sir Eobert Peel took the matter in hand in a practical
manner, by initiating a scheme of arterial drainage, which,
however, collapsed under the pressure of the great famine
a few years later. In 1844, the celebrated Devon
Commission reported " that there was scarcely any subject
upon which evidence was so concurrent as the desirableness
of Waste Land Eeclamation; " but, like a good many
more of the desirable reforms suggested in the same
quarter, this also fell upon deaf ears. In 1847, Lord
John Eussell, then Prime Minister, brought forward an
elaborate proposal on the subject; which met with the
usual fate in due course ; this time principally at the hands
of Sir Eobert Peel himself. Finally, after the lapse of
more than a quarter of a century, Mr. J. G. M'Carthy,
ex-M.P. for Mallow, courageously attempted to resuscitate
an interest in the question in Parliament by the intro-
duction of a "Waste Lands (Ireland) •Bill" in 1875.
How that honourable gentleman struggled against the fates,
and was rewarded for his temerity, when success was
almost within his grasp, by being worsted in the struggle,
had best be told in his own words, perhaps, as set forth in
the Times of October the 28th, 1879

" The great national work of arterial drainage is at a stand
still. To remedy this state of things," observes Mr. M'Carthy,
" I brought in the 4 Waste Lands (Ireland) Bill' of 1875. It
was substantially an embodiment of Lord John Eusseli/s
proposal of 1847, to which I have referred. The then Chief
Secretary, Sir M. Hicks-Beach, admitted that 4 the attention
of the House could hardly be occupied with any question of
greater importance,' and suggested that, 4 if anything could be
done by way of Government interference to secure that works
of arterial drainage should be more generally carried out, that,
indeed, would be a matter which the State could reasonably52

undertake.' I remodelled my measure in deference to the
Governmental suggestion. The Waste Lands Bill of 1878 was
mainly a proposal to promote arterial drainage on the principle
of Sir Robert Peel's legislation of 1842; but, of course, it
retained Lord John Russell's peasant proprietary proposals.
It was prepared with great technical skill by Mr. George OrmB
Malley, Q.C., whose work is the authority on the drainage
question. It was supported by Irish members of all sections,
and by English members, so distinguished and so various irl
their stand-points as Mr. Bright and Sir Robert Peel, Mrl
Cowen and Sir Eardley Wilmot, Mr. Chamberlain ancf
Mr. Read, Sir Charles Forster and Lord Kensington, Sir
Francis Goldsmid and Lord de Grey. But, as so ofteii
happens with Irish bills, just as the division was about to bt*>
taken, a crowd of hon. members, who perhaps never set foot in
Ireland or even heard a word of the debate, rushed from club and!
smoking-room, and caused the rejection of the bill by a small
majority. If it had been passed reproductive works would
now be in beneficent operation all over Ireland, and no danger'
of famine would exist"

So far Mr. J. G. M'Carthy. In England seveuj
millions of acres of waste lands have been reclaimed since
1820. In France four millions have been reclaimed since)
1830. In Prussia a million of acres have been reclaimed
since 1872. In Ireland, where the waste lands extend^
over one-fifth of the entire surface of the country, nothing^
worth recalling has been done towards their reclamation.
The fates are clearly against it. Yet if there be anything
more than a poetical fancy in the line,—" To bear is to
conquer fate," the descendants of King William's Dutch,
troopers in the neighbourhood of the Bog of Allen, having
failed to obtain their own law of empoldering, have at least
achieved as notable a victory as any, perhaps, recorded in
the annals of their enterprising sovereign, since they have
now for more than a century and a half borne with the
moist atmosphere of that extensive and somewhat
melancholy morass in patience, if not in comfort.53

Everywhere in Mayo, as well as in other extensive Irish
counties whose normal condition is at all times one border-
ing on starvation, the problem uppermost in the minds of
intelligent men is how to provide a congested population
with employment of a reproductive character; there being
practically no industry in the country but the one, and
fhat being purely agricultural. " If we could only,"
observed a thoughtful young Protestant clergyman,
speaking to me at Castlebar,—" if we could only buy
up and run a drain through our waste lands, and at the
same time get rid of the drain upon our resources caused
by the absentee landlords, ours would speedily become a
prosperous country." And amongst the numerous letters
addressed to me by persons of distinction in England and
Ireland, in acknowledgment of the earlier editions of this
little pamphlet within the last few months, there is one
from the Catholic Bishop of Eaphoe, in Donegal, who is so
well and widely known beyond the limits of his own com-
munion, which comes to hand very appropriately at the
present time to bring these observations to a conclusion:—

" The points to which you direct attention at pages 18 and 25,"
his Lordship remarks, " are worthy of all the attention which can
be bestowed upon them. I suppose it would be very difficult
to put a complete stop to the absenteeism which is bleeding the
country to death, but the Government could easily provide for
the reclamation of waste lands; and any settlement of the land
question which does not provide for this will leave one of the
.principal means of alleviating the misery of the people untried.
I have endeavoured to impress this on Mr. Childers and some
other English statesmen who have come here to study the wants
of the country. I believe they could, by this means, scatter the
the people abroad from the overcrowded districts, obviate the
necessity of emigration, and do all for less than an extensive
government scheme of emigration would cost."54

ALLEGED DENSITY OF POPULATION, AND
NUMERICAL PREPONDERANCE OF CHILDREN
IN IRELAND AS COMPARED WITH ENGLAND
AND SCOTLAND.

I am indebted for the following interesting statistics to
a valuable brochure on the Irish question, lately published
by Mr. Joseph Pim, whose father, Mr. Jonathan Pim,
Ex-M.P. for Dublin, rendered such signal services to his
suffering fellow-creatures during the period of the great
famine in 1847, in conjunction with the two Forsters, the
Bewleys, Tuke, Bennett, and other members of the
Society of Friends in the United Kingdom. Mr. Pim is
moved to impatience by the fanciful ideas of politicians
like the Hon. Evelyn Ashley, M.P., who, addressing his
constituents a short time ago at Gosport, said :—" The
Irish people were undoubtedly idle and improvident, but
for this they were not wholly to blame. They married at
•eighteen, and, after having families of thirteen, they
expected to become millionaires and Rothschilds."

Now it is the more inexcusable on the part of Mr. Ashley,
perhaps, to fall into the mistake of using an ad captandum,
argument of this character, since he has, according to Dod,
a residence and is a magistrate in the County of Sligo, and
might therefore be expected to know better. On the other
hand, it must in fairness be acknowledged that any one
who has only cursorily visited the hovels of the Irish poor
might easily be misled into adopting the latter part of his
theory in a modified degree. The general conditions of
life are so indescribably wretched, the admixture of
children of any age, or in any number, on the scene has55

the appearance of an intrusion; as though it were, so to
say, an incongruity of nature. I have myself been
frequently so overcome by emotion at the sad sight
presented by these little ones, I ha*ve had to hasten my
steps into the open air to recover my composure, and
before I could give utterance to the combined feelings of
pain and astonishment which oppressed me. For these, be
it remembered, are not the offspring of sin or crime, since
the purity of morals prevailing amongst the women of the
South and West of Ireland is one of those things admitted
by universal acknowledgment. And yet I only saw the
best, not the worst, parts of Mayo, having been unable to
penetrate into the barony of Erris, which is larger than
any one of several English counties that might be named,
and almost as distinct from Mayo, as Mayo itself is from
the Eastern parts of Ireland. Afflicting as is the general
condition of the county, there is here yet a lower depth
in misery. Human wretchedness has been described as
though it were concentrated in Erris; the culminating point
in man's physical degradation appears to have been reached
in the Mullet.

DENSITY OF POPULATION*

Per Sq. Mile.

Belgium ... ... ' ..	...	...	469

England and Wales ... ...	♦ ...	...	389

Italy ... ... ...	...	•••	238

Germany ... ... ...	...	•«•	201

Holland ......... ...........185

France ... ... ...	•••	•••	180

Switzerland... ... ...	...	•••	175

Austria ... ... ...	•••	•••	175

Ireland........................•••	169

* "The Statesman's Year Book."56

PROPORTION OF POPULATION UNMARRIED AND MARRIED (PER-CENTAGE) 1871.*										
			Unmarried.		Married.				Widowed.	
England and Wales ... Scotland ...  Ireland			37-22  43-77  44-99		53-98 46-78 44-74				8-80 9-45 10-27	
MEAN AGES OF MARRIED PERSONS, 1871 *										
			Husbands.				Wives.			
England and Wales ...  Scotland  Ireland			43-10 43-60 47-95				40-60 41*00 42-51			
PER-CENTAGE OF POPULATION BETWEEN THE AGES OF 15 AND 25 UNMARRIED, 1871*										
	England and Wales.  i			Scotland.				Ireland.		
Ages.	Males.	Females.		Males.		Females.		Males.		Females.
15 and under 20, 20 and under 25,	99-44 76-71	96-82 65-16		99-66 84-16		97-82 73-79		99-77 91-28		98*08 78-12

* Census of Ireland, 1871, Part III., Pages 54, 60 and 61.

* Census of Ireland, 1871, Part III., Pages 54, 60 and 61.

NATURAL INCREASE OF POPULATION, 1861-71.*			
	England and Wales.	Scotland.	Ireland.
Population, 1871 Emigration, 1861-71...  Population, 1861 Increase, 10 years Percentage of Increase	22,704,108 649,742	3,358,613 158,226	5,402,759 866,626
	23,353,850 20,066,224	3,516,839 3,062,294	6,269,385 5,798,967
	3,287,626	454,545	470,418
	16-4	14-84	8-1

* Census of England and Wales, 1871. Preliminary Report, Page xxv.

* Census of England and Wales, 1871. Preliminary Report, Page xxv.57

PEOCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMENT—SPEECH OF
ME. W. E. FORSTER.

On the 13th of August, 1880, Mr. O'Connor Power, M.P.
for Mayo, called the attention of Parliament to the state of that
county,*and other parts of the West of Ireland. In the course
of his speech he dwelt upon the various reports lately presented
to the Government and the Mansion House Committee re-
spectively, by medical gentlemen specially deputed to make such
reports, and also quoted at considerable length, as set forth in
the Times, from the reports of Mr. J. A. Fox, as regards the
general condition of the people of Mayo, apart from the question
of health and sanitation. Mr. Power's speeeh led to a length-
ened debate, in which several other members took part.

The Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. W. E. Forster), speak-
ing on behalf of the Government, is reported to have made the
following observations in the course of his reply :—He admitted
that this debate had been a very useful one, and felt that in
the course of it many suggestions had been made to him from
which he hoped to derive some advantage. The hon. member
for Mayo made a most interesting and most moderate statement.
He did not know that he could feel, as the hon. member went
through that statement, that it was overcharged in any respect*
What he felt as he heard the Statement, and what he had felt
in reading the documents which the hon. gentleman had not at
all unfairly quoted, was some sort of melancholy satisfaction that
out of the calamity of the distress of this year there might arise
this good result—that a very strong light was thrown on the
condition of the people in some parts of Ireland. He thought
it was a very strong lesson to us all to learn wliat had been
rightly called the normal condition of the labourers and of
many of the small tenantry in many parts of Ireland. As
regards the question of fever, there appeared to be a universal58

agreement that what the doctors call the predisposing cause—
and it was a very instructive and illustrative word—to its
increase was, not really an absolute want of food, but it was
probably a want of sufficient strengthening food, and the mono-
tony of one particular kind of food. He thought there seemed
to be a general testimony to that effect. Then the sanitary
arrangements were, no doubt, another very predisposing cause.
In fact, it was very difficult to read these reports and not rise
from their perusal with the greatest possible surprise, that if
the fever once got into these districts, it should not spread
much more than it had done. He could only account for its not
having spread more, on the ground that the poor people had
been acclimatised to this low style of living, and these low
conditions of household accommodation. What could be done ?
To a very considerable extent, the practical recommendations of
the hon. member had already been carried out by the Local
Government Board. A change of food had been given where
there was any real danger of fever, and medical assistance had,
as far as possible, been rendered where it was required. The
causes of the evils which the House had to lament were, he
was afraid, more deep-seated than anything connected with the
-constitution of the Boards of Guardians; and, although he
•disapproved the present mode of their election, he should be
deceiving the House if he were to lead it to suppose he thought
that an alteration in that respect would be productive of any
great change in the sanitary condition of the country. A sug-
gestion had, he might add, been made by the hon. member for
Cork, which he should most carefully consider. He alluded to
that which had reference to the question whether the area of
rating in Ireland was not too small. There could be no doubt
that one of the greatest reforms in England was the substitution
of the union for the parish for rating purposes. Allusion had
been made to the difference between the Poor-Law in England
and in Ireland, and he might observe in connexion with the
subject, that he feared he was considered a heretic by some of
his friends, because he had never been one of those who in
England had felt so thoroughly opposed as others to out-door
relief. Great evils might be the result of a large amount of59

it; but he believed very much of the success with which England
liad got through great difficulties, and had avoided great social
^convulsions, was due to the circumstance, that from the time of
Elizabeth up to the present day, every man in the country knew
that he had a right to live, and it was difficult to carry out that
state of things without some species of out-door relief. But it
had been bought at a very dear price, and there were men of
great eminence in Ireland, not at all confined to the supporters
of Protestant ascendancy, who were opposed to the introduction
of any Poor-Law. He thought that probably they would not
have had the terribly low wages that were paid in Ireland in
former times if there had then been a system of Poor-Law.
There was one point in which the Irish labourer or small tenant
compared favourably with the English labourer. If some of
their actions were brought before us in a way that tried our
patience and made us indignant, it was well to recollect the way
in which Irish labourers helped their neighbours and the members
of their own families. The enormous sums lately sent from
America reflected great credit on the Irish character. As to the
Irishmen who came to England to earn wages, he was afraid
that it would be very difficult to contend that English labourers
in the same circumstances would not leave the larger portion of
their earnings in public-houses. These facts should be taken into
•consideration when they were comparing tho Irish Poor-Law
with the English Poor-Law. There was another suggestion
which had been made on which he could not then give an opinion,
with regard to the rule now in force of keeping off the Boards
of Guardians the ministers of the different denominations. He
was not sure whether the evils of Sectarianism were not increased
by these efforts to guard against them. He did not know that
it would not be wiser to treat the clergy as any other gentlemen
of the neighbourhood, with the hope that they would do their
duty, as he believed they were all anxious to do. If the hon.
member would be content with a resolution stating that the
present condition of the agricultural population in Mayo, Sligo,
and other parts of Ireland demanded the immediate and serious
attention of the Government, he should be glad to ask the House
to agree to it.60

Mr. O'Connor Power consented to the amendment suggested
by the right hon. gentleman.

Mr. T. P. O'Connor suggested that the word " Galway" should
be inserted in the amendment after the words " Mayo, Sligo."

The amendment was then agreed to in this form :—" Thatr
in the opinion of this House, the present condition of the agricul-
tural population in Mayo, Sligo, Galway, and other parts of the
West of Ireland, demands the serious and immediate attention
of Her Majesty's Government."

It was to this important result, satisfactory so far, the Lord
Mayor (Mr. Edmund Dywer Gray, M.P.) referred in the follow-
ing observations which occur in the course of his speech at the
Mansion House on the occasion of the final public meeting of
the Committee on the 14th of August, 1880 :—

" To Dr. Sigerson, Dr. Kenny, and Mr. J. A. Fox, our thanks
are also due for their most valuable Reports; and to these
gentlemen gratitude is, indeed, due, not only from the Committee,
but from the country, for having, without reward, except the
reward of their own consciences, given the services they did ;
who went and personally inspected the localities, and gave us
those Reports, the value of which was recognised in the House
of Commons and by the Government, who have acted on the
suggestions of these gentlemen. These reports will be a lasting
record of the work done by this Committee."This book is a preservation facsimile produced for
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