The last enactment of the present reign requiring to be noticed, in connexion with our subject, is _The 33rd Henry 8th, cap. 15_, entitled ‘An Act for Vagabonds.’ It recites—“forasmuch as at a parliament holden at London, it was enacted and ordeyned how aged poor and impotent persons compelled to live by alms should be ordered, and how vagabonds and mighty strong beggars should be punished, which Act (_22nd Henry 8th, cap. 12_) for divers causes, is thought very meet and necessary to be enacted in this land”—wherefore it is ordained and established, “That the same Act, and all and every article provision and thing comprised in the same, be an Act and statute to be continued and kept as a law within this land of Ireland, according to the tenor and purport of the same.” The English Act (_22nd Henry 8th, cap. 12_) is then given at length, and stands in the statutes as an Act of the Irish parliament, and is to be obeyed accordingly. A full account of this statute will be found in the ‘History of the English Poor Law’ (vol. i. page 115) to which the reader is referred. Whether the Act was entirely suited to the backward state of Ireland at that time, may admit of doubt; but there can be no doubt that if enforced it was calculated to bring about a better order of things by repressing vagabondism, and making some provision for the relief of the destitute. We have no means of knowing to what extent the Act was enforced, or whether it was enforced at all. It could hardly have been brought into operation beyond the English pale, and even within the pale the arm of the law was then feeble, and its action uncertain; so it is probable that like many other measures intended for the benefit of Ireland, the present Act was permitted to lie dormant. It remained in force however, as one of the Irish statutes, until 1772, when it was repealed by the _11th and 12th George 3rd, cap. 30_.[11] ----- [11] See post, p. 51. ----- [Sidenote: 1569. 11 Elizabeth, cap. 4.]