We now approach a period when public attention was very generally and very earnestly directed to the condition of the poor, and to the operation of the laws providing for their relief. In 1832 commissioners were appointed to inquire into these subjects in England, and the reader is referred to the 2nd volume of the ‘_History of the English Poor Laws_’ for information as to their Report on the occasion, and also for an account of the important measure which was founded thereon. [Sidenote: 1833. Commission to inquire into the condition of the poorer classes in Ireland.] On the 25th September 1833, commissioners were appointed “to inquire into the condition of the poorer classes in Ireland, and into the various institutions at present established by law for their relief; and also whether any and what further remedial measures appear to be requisite to ameliorate the condition of the Irish poor or any portion of them.”[58] An extensive field of inquiry was thus laid open to the commissioners, who forthwith entered upon the duties confided to them; and it must be admitted that there could hardly have been any more important, or more highly responsible. [Sidenote: 1835. The commissioners’ first report.] In July 1835 the commissioners made their first Report—“_as to the modes in which the destitute classes in Ireland are supported, to the extent and efficiency of those modes, and their effects upon those who give, and upon those who receive relief_.” A large body of evidence is appended to the Report, which evidence the commissioners say is now complete, containing parochial examinations made in one parish in each of seventeen counties, relative to the present modes of relieving— “Deserted and orphan children. “Illegitimate children and their mothers. “Widows having families of young children. “The impotent through age or other permanent infirmity. “The sick poor, who in health are capable of earning their subsistence. “The able-bodied out of work. “Vagrancy as a mode of relief.” ----- [58] The commissioners were, the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Murray (the Roman catholic Archbishop), Rev. Charles Vignoles, Richard More O'Farrall Esq., Rev. James Carlisle, Fenton Hort Esq., John Corrie Esq., James Naper Esq. and William Battie Wrightson Esq. The Right Hon. A. R. Blake was subsequently added to the commission. ----- An examination of every dispensary in nine counties is also given, and of every infirmary, and some dispensaries and hospitals in eleven counties. Likewise the examinations concerning institutions not medical, for the relief of different classes of the poor, which are said to be “principally mendicity institutions, houses of industry, almshouses, and societies for visiting the destitute and distributing food, money, or clothes,” in all the large towns.