“It would perhaps be in vain, even if it were desirable, to seek to make the lodging, the clothing, and the diet, of the inmates of an Irish workhouse, inferior to those of the Irish peasantry. The standard of their mode of living is so low, that the establishment of one still lower is difficult, and would under any circumstances be inexpedient. In Ireland therefore, there would not perhaps be found the same security in this respect for the efficiency of the workhouse test, which may in some degree be operative in England. There are countervailing circumstances in Ireland however, which more than balance this drawback, even if it were greater than it really is. The Irish are naturally, or by habit, a migratory people, fond of change, hopeful, sanguine, eager for experiment. They have never been practically limited to one spot by a law of settlement, as has been the case with the English peasantry. They have never been enervated by a misapplied system of parish relief. Rather than bear the restrictions of a workhouse, the Irishman, if in possession of health and strength, would wander the world over to obtain a living. All the opinions I have collected from persons most conversant with the Irish character, agree in this. Confinement of any kind is even more irksome to an Irishman than to an Englishman. Hence, although he might be lodged, fed, and clothed, in a workhouse, better than he could lodge, feed, and clothe himself—he will yet, like the Englishman, never enter the workhouse, unless driven thither by actual necessity; and he will not then remain there longer than that necessity exists. The test of the workhouse is then, I think, likely to be as efficient in Ireland, as it is proved to be in England; and if relief be there restricted to the workhouse, it will be at once a test of destitution, and a measure of relief, and will serve to protect the administration of a legal provision for the destitute poor, from those evils and abuses which followed the establishment, and led to the perversion, of the old Poor Laws in England. I speak of the workhouse as a test of destitution generally, without limiting its operation to age, infirmity, or other circumstances; for independent of the difficulty of discriminating between those who may fairly be considered as aged and infirm, and those who are not—as well as certain other difficulties, practical and theoretical, in the way of making any such distinction—I have found in the state of Ireland, no sufficient reason for departing from the principle of the English Poor Law which recognises _destitution alone_ as the ground of relief, nor for establishing a distinction in the one country, which does not exist in the other.