This was the second year in which upwards of 3,000,000 of people had been fed “out of the hands of the magistrate” in Ireland, but it was now done more effectually than at first. The relief-works had been crowded, often to the exclusion of numbers who were really destitute; but a ration of cooked food was less attractive than money wages had been, and it also proved a more effectual relief to the helpless poor. “The famine was stayed.” Deaths from starvation no longer occurred. Cattle-stealing and other crimes connected with the want or insufficiency of food became less prevalent, and the system of relief which had been established is with allowable self-gratulation declared to be “the grandest attempt ever made to grapple with famine over a whole country.” Organized armies, it is said, had been rationed before; “but neither ancient nor modern history can furnish a parallel to the fact that upwards of three millions of persons were fed every day in the neighbourhood of their own homes, by administrative arrangements emanating from and controlled by one central office.”[142] The expense of this great undertaking amounted to 1,557,212_l._,—a moderate sum in comparison with the extent of the service performed, and in which performance the machinery of the Poor Law unions was found to afford most important aid. Indeed without such aid, the service could hardly have been performed at all; and the anticipations of the advantage to be derived from the Poor Law organization in such emergencies,[143] were fully verified. ----- [142] See ‘The Irish Crisis.’ See also the Reports of the Irish relief commissioners, which give full information on this interesting but distressing subject. [143] See the author’s first Report, p. 167 ante. ----- [Sidenote: Fever.] Fever as usual followed in the train of famine, and in order to check its ravages _the 10th and 11th Vict. cap. 22_ was passed, “making provision for the treatment of poor persons afflicted with fever,” and enabling the relief committees to provide temporary hospitals, to ventilate and cleanse cabins, to remove nuisances, and to procure the proper burial of the dead, the funds necessary for these objects being advanced by the government in the same way as for furnishing food. Upwards of three hundred hospitals and dispensaries were provided under this Act, with accommodation for at least 23,000 patients, and the sanitary powers which it conferred were extensively acted upon. The expense incurred for these objects amounted to 119,055_l._, “the whole of which was made a free gift to the unions in aid of the rates.” [Sidenote: Advances by government.]