“In the workhouses of the penal colonies to which the able-bodied mendicants are sent, one ward is used in common as a dormitory, refectory, and workshop. The inmates sleep in hammocks, and are very coarsely clad. They labour in the fields, or in making bricks, or at manufactures in the house, under the superintendence of an inspector. Each colonist is furnished with a book, in which is entered the work executed daily, the amount of food and clothes furnished, his share of the general expenses of the establishment, and whatever he has received in the paper-money of the colony. Guards on horseback to patrol the boundary of the colony, rewards given for bringing back any colonist who has attempted to escape, and an uniform dress, are the means adopted to prevent desertion from the colony. Mendicants when arrested, may choose whether they will be brought before the tribunals as vagabonds, or be sent to the coercive colony, where they must remain at least one year. These rigorous measures for the suppression of mendicancy, have been adopted in the absence of any acknowledgment of a right to relief, and notwithstanding that a large portion of the relief actually administered arises from endowments and voluntary contributions. This forms an important feature in the Dutch and Belgian system; and if, as I believe, the rigour of this part of their institutions has been caused by the imperfect organization of the others, the true remedy would have been, not in the establishment of penal colonies, but in such an improvement of those other institutions as would have rendered them efficient for the repression of mendicancy, as well as for the administration of relief. On comparing the modes of relief existing in Holland and Belgium, with the system of relief it is proposed to establish in Ireland, the latter will I think be found to be much more simple and complete, and consequently to promise greater efficiency. No right to relief exists in Holland or Belgium, yet mendicancy is suppressed in both those countries. It is proposed not to give a right to relief in Ireland, and it is intended to suppress mendicancy,—in this respect therefore the circumstances are similar. But in Ireland, it is proposed to divide the whole country into districts of convenient extent, with a workhouse to each, so that every destitute and infirm person will be within easy reach of adequate relief; and this arrangement is obviously preferable to the various, and in some respects conflicting modes of relief which exist in Holland and Belgium, and will be more effective in its operation. The example of Holland and Belgium may therefore be cited, in addition to that of England, in support of the proposed Irish Poor Law.