ction of one-third
made on their respective rents, besides building houses for all that
required them, and for which no charge was made_; and in every other
place where I had any arrangements to make with tenants, that similar
consideration had been shown; and although I have had large transactions
connected with land in the counties of Limerick, Clare, and Kerry, in
all of which counties the Devon Commission sat, you will not find a
single instance of oppression, or any complaint having been made, much
less to the extent of turning out three hundred families, which you have
thought proper to charge me with. As to your assertion, that my life has
been attempted five times within the last year, I can assure you that no
attempt was ever made on my life before the last assizes, and then not
for turning out a tenant, _but because I refused to assist a tenant to
turn out his brother's widow while her husband lay on his bed of death,
hardly allowing the body to get cold, when he insisted that I should
help him to add the widow's holding to his own_."

[10] The Appendix to the 10th Report affords some curious and
important information as to the classes in which destitution is to be
found. The commissioners directed the clerks of the unions to furnish
them with lists of the severest cases of destitution which were relieved
in the different houses, and the occupations which they had previously
followed, and accordingly 870 cases are given in the Appendix by them.
It appears the number of males above fifteen years of age relieved in
the quarter ending 9th April 1844, was _only_ 11,224.

Of Peasants. Of Servants. Of Mendicants.
Male labourers, 4599 Male servants, 585 Male, 1473
Female, 924 Female, 4653 Female, 3745
---- ---- ----
Total, 5523 Total, 5238 Total, 5218

_Of farmers who had held, or were still in occupation of land, 79_

Thus we see, that the number of servants and vagrants requiring relief,
amounted to within three hundred of the numbers of the agricultural
labourers, and that the number of those _connected with the possession
of land, and who had sought relief on account of termination of leases,
non-payment of rent, expulsion because they were tenants-at-will, or
temporary distress, amounted to the incredibly small number of
seventy