_7thly._ _Of Apprenticeship._—“The experience which England affords with regard to apprenticeship, is of a somewhat conflicting character, although the preponderance of testimony is opposed to it. It is open to much abuse, and has operated mischievously in several parts of the country, by increasing that dependence upon the parish which under the old Poor Law had become so characteristic of the English peasantry. It must however I think be admitted, that the apprenticing of orphan and destitute children, as provided for by _the 43rd of Elizabeth_, has in many cases been productive of good; and if judiciously limited, so as not to be regarded as the ordinary mode of providing for the children of the labouring classes, but merely as a resource for the destitute and the orphan, it might still I think be continued with advantage. I am aware that this opinion differs somewhat from that of the members of the late English Poor Law Inquiry Commission; but the evidence of abuse submitted to the commissioners was taken in the time of the old Poor Law, which converted everything it touched into an abuse; and it does not follow, because apprenticeship added to the accumulation of evils under such circumstances, that it is incapable of producing good under others. It is on the different application of apprenticeship, and on the different circumstances in which it would be applied, that I now rely. None of the abuses exist in Ireland which prevailed under the old parochial management in England; and by the aid of the union machinery apprenticeship may, I think, be safely applied to the placing out of destitute and orphan children, the number of whom in Ireland is very considerable. The Poor Law Amendment Act empowers the commissioners to frame regulations for apprenticing the children of poor persons; and I propose to extend this provision to Ireland, by which it may be hoped that all the beneficial effects of the law may be secured, whilst the evils which certainly have resulted from it in England will in great measure be avoided.