plied and steadily-falling markets; and yet
the Premier eagerly grasps at any new exaggeration of those men, for the
purpose of supporting his own overdrawn pictures of fresh distress.

But there is, in reality, neither that distress nor that scarcity in
Ireland which we are taught to believe exist there. The people are fond
of coarse food, which we think unfit for men, but they prefer
it--witness the various insinuations of the paupers against the use of
Indian corn flour.

That the Irish consider the constant use of "bread and meat" as an
infliction, is proved by a rather ludicrous account given of their
feelings on this head in his evidence before Lord Devon's Committee, by
Mr Thomas Glennon, No. 418, part second. After telling the Commissioners
that many persons had emigrated from his neighbourhood to South America,
"that they had succeeded there, and sent large remittances to their
friends through his hands," he is asked--"Have they sent any statement
how the climate agrees with them?" "It agrees very well with them, _and
the only difficulty they find is, that they have not potatoes to eat;
the bread and meat, and constant eating, is what disagrees with them_."
Now, surely, if we ought to consult the political prejudices of the
Irish people when legislating for them, as the Premier says we should
do, we ought not altogether to disregard their culinary tastes, or force
them to eat a diet which they dislike, only because we prize it
ourselves.

The extraordinary blunders which some of those enthusiastic men who
undertake to legislate on Irish subjects so frequently commit, would
excite feelings of ridicule, if the observations in which they see fit
to indulge were not calculated to produce mischief in quarters where
their insignificance is not known, and where their flippant fallacies
may be mistaken for facts. Thus, Mr Poulett Scrope exclaims,--"What! are
130 work-houses, capable of containing 100,000 people, to be considered
sufficient to supply accommodation for 2,800,000 destitute paupers?" If
the honourable gentleman took the trouble of consulting documentary
evidence, he would have found that they were much more than sufficient.
It is true that the commissioners _reported_ that there were in a
population of 8,000,000, 2,800,000 in a state of destitution, and they
proposed that 100, subsequently they suggested that 130 houses, capable
of containing 100,000 persons, should be built for their accommodation.
In