Before submitting a proposal for establishing a union, the assistant-commissioners in every instance called a meeting of the inhabitants of the district, and explained the nature and intent of the law, together with the proposed arrangements for carrying it into effect, and also took into consideration whatever objections or suggestions there might have been made on the occasion; and it was not until after this public exposition of the course proposed to be pursued, and a careful sifting of testimony for and against it, that the arrangements for the several unions were proposed to, and received the sanction of the board in Dublin. The Reports of the assistant-commissioners on these occasions were sometimes long and minute, entering into a detail of the circumstances of the district, and thus forming “a valuable body of information general and statistical, which may hereafter serve to test the working of the measure, and its effects upon the population.” A copy of one of these Reports furnished by each of the assistant-commissioners, was inserted by way of example in the Appendix to the annual Report. [Sidenote: The Dublin house of industry.] The Board’s attention was early directed to the state of the charitable institutions in Dublin, and especially to the house of industry and the foundling hospital, both of which became vested in the commissioners under the _34th section_ of the Poor Relief Act. The house of industry consisted of an asylum for aged and infirm poor and incurable lunatics, together with the Hardwick, the Whitworth, and the Richmond Hospitals, and the Talbot Dispensary. It was constituted under the Irish Act of _11th and 12th Geo. 3rd, cap. 11_,[94] and was expected to be supported by voluntary contributions, but these soon failed, and in 1777 it received a grant of 4,000_l._ from parliament, and had continued ever since to be supported in like manner. In 1816 it was determined to appropriate the house of industry to the reception of the aged and infirm and the sick poor, orphan children, and lunatics and idiots. This led to the introduction of a large number of persons requiring medical treatment, and made it necessary to provide hospitals for the purpose. The expense of the entire establishment was defrayed by parliament, and the grant for each of the preceding five years had been 20,000_l._ The estimate for 1839 was 21,136_l._ The number of inmates was as follows— Aged and infirm poor 888 Incurable lunatics and epileptics 474 —-— 1,362 Sick in the hospitals 303 —-— Total 1,665 ----- [94] Ante, p. 45. ----- [Sidenote: The Dublin foundling hospital.]