the 9th report of those gentlemen, we find that, in the quarter
ending December 1842, eighty-six houses, built to contain 73,960
paupers, were in operation in Ireland, and that on the average, only
_27,000 persons availed themselves of the relief they afforded_, "_about
one-third the number they were capable of accommodating_." In the report
for 1843, we see that in _ninety-two houses, built to contain 78,160_,
in which relief had been administered from the 10th January 1844, the
average number of inmates _was_ 31,578, and the gross number to whom
relief had been afforded during the year, was 53,582. And in the 11th
report, the last published, "in 105 houses which were open from January
1844 to January 1845, the gross number relieved was 68,371, _and the
average number of inmates 37,780, although those 105 houses were capable
of accommodating 84,000 individuals_."[10] Thus we have it clearly
proved, that those houses never at any time contained _one-half, and
very seldom more than one-third of the numbers they were constructed to
accommodate_--and yet Mr Scrope waxes furious because more houses are
not built, while those already erected are not half occupied.

Lord George Bentinck, to whose opinions and to whose statements great
weight is deservedly attached, expresses his dissatisfaction at the
working of the Irish Poor-law, because while L5,000,000 is expended
annually in this country in succouring 16,000,000, only L250,000 is
spent in Ireland in giving relief to 8,000,000 of the people. But if his
lordship took time to consider, he would see that the disproportionate
expenditure was not caused by any restrictions which the Irish law
imposed, but _by the unwillingness of the Irish people to take advantage
of its enactments_. If he had recourse to the returns of the
commissioners, he would have found, that while in the year ending
January 1844 the gross number of those who received parochial relief in
Ireland was 53,582, the number of those who received similar relief in
England amounted to 4,279,565, considerably more than one-fourth of the
population, of whom 958,057 _actually entered the Bastiles_. Thus we
have _nearly the sixteenth part of the population seeking in-door relief
in England and Wales, and not the one hundred and twentieth part in
Ireland_. But the small numbers admitted in Ireland, and the small
expenditure incurred in succouring the poor in that country, is not the
fault of the law. It sets no limit t