The foregoing summary of the commissioners’ recommendations can hardly be said to come within the province of poor-law legislation, but it has been thought right to insert them here, in order that the reader may see what were the commissioners’ views with regard to the state of Ireland, and especially with regard to its wants, which apparently consist in a want of capital, and a want of skill. The first is proposed to be furnished by government through the Board of Works, the last it is proposed to supply by constituting a “Board of Improvement.” The 16th section of the Report commences with the declaration “_We now come to measures of direct relief for the poor_.” After adverting to the Poor Laws of England and Scotland, the one carried into universal effect by local assessments, and the other “in general supported by voluntary contributions administered by officers known to the law and responsible to it”—the commissioners say “they have shown by their second Report that the institutions existing in Ireland for the relief of the poor are houses of industry, infirmaries, fever hospitals, lunatic asylums, and dispensaries; that the establishment of these, except as to lunatic asylums, is not compulsory, but dependent upon private subscriptions, or the will of grand juries; that there are but nine houses of industry in the whole country; that while the provision made for the sick poor in some places is extensive, it is in other places utterly inadequate; and that there is no general provision made for the aged, the impotent, or the destitute.” Much, it is added, is certainly given in Ireland in private charity, “but it is not given upon any organised system of relief, and the abundant alms which are bestowed, in particular by the poorer classes, unfortunately tend to encourage mendicancy with its attendant evils.” The commissioners then declare that upon the best consideration they have been able to give to the whole subject, they think that a legal provision should be made, and rates levied, “for the relief and support of incurable as well as curable lunatics, of idiots, epileptic persons, cripples, deaf and dumb and blind poor, and all who labour under permanent bodily infirmities—such relief and support to be afforded within the walls of public institutions; also for the relief of the sick poor in hospitals, infirmaries, and convalescent establishments, or by extern attendance and a supply of food as well as medicine where the persons to be relieved are not in a state to be removed from home; also for the purpose of emigration, for the support of penitentiaries to which vagrants may be sent, and for the maintenance of deserted children; also towards the relief of aged and infirm persons, of orphans, of helpless widows with young children, of the families of sick persons, and of casual destitution.”