we will therefore resume our task of tracing out the progress of the law, and inquiring into the circumstances under which it has to be administered. ----- [159] Ante, p. 211. ----- [Sidenote: Change of the commission. August 27, 1847.] On the passing of the first of the above Acts (_10th and 11th Vict. cap. 31_, commonly known as the Relief Extension Act), copies of it were forwarded to all the unions, and the attention of the several boards of guardians was called to the necessity of making provision on a much larger scale than heretofore for the relief of the poor, and pointing out the conditions on which the relief was henceforward to be administered to the classes of infirm and able-bodied. Five additional assistant-commissioners were also appointed[160] to attend to the large increase of duties now devolved upon the commission. On the 27th of August the appointment of Mr. Twisleton as chief commissioner, under the _10th and 11th Vict. cap. 90_, was notified in the Dublin Gazette, and on the following day the administration of the law became vested in the new commission established by that Act, the ten gentlemen then acting as assistant-commissioners were appointed inspectors, and Mr. Power was appointed the assistant-commissioner. ----- [160] These were Mr. Crawford, Mr. Bourke, Mr. Stanley, and Mr. Barron. Mr. Phelan had been appointed some months previously to superintend the sanitary state of the workhouses. Mr. Stanley afterwards became secretary, and was succeeded as inspector by Mr. Flanagan. ----- [Sidenote: Decrease of sickness and mortality.]