The crops in the autumn of 1849 turned out generally sound and abundant, and famine no longer cast its blight upon the land. Yet while all other parts of the country, including Mayo and Galway heretofore the most depressed and suffering, rejoiced in the favourable change, we are told that the unions in the county of Clare, especially those of Kilrush and Scariff, continued to exhibit a lamentable extent of destitution. There were still 30,000 persons on the out-relief lists in the Clare unions, nearly twice the number so relieved in the whole province of Connaught; “and the rate of mortality in the workhouses, and the number of inquests, although less than in former seasons, attest the indigent and suffering state of a great part of the population.” [Sidenote: Reduction of expenditure anticipated.] A hope is nevertheless expressed “that the ground has been laid for a further very considerable reduction of expenditure after harvest, and that a material alleviation of the burden of poor-rates throughout Ireland, will be experienced during the year which will end on the 29th September 1851.” [Sidenote: Increase of workhouse accommodation.] The large increase of workhouse accommodation which the last Report states to have been provided,[181] and the opinion which generally prevailed as to the importance of limiting relief as much as possible to the workhouse, appear to have realized the hope then expressed of successfully contending with the difficulties of the period. The large expenditure, amounting to 1,498,047_l._, connected with in-door relief in 1848-9, shows the determined character of the struggle, and although only partial success in establishing the system was obtained, events have shown the prudence of the course then pursued. When the boards of guardians which had been dissolved, resumed the charge of their unions in November, as provided by the _12th and 13th Vict. cap. 4_,[182] they not only evinced a desire to limit relief to the workhouse, but were also with few exceptions prepared to make a further increase of their workhouse accommodation wherever it appeared to be necessary. So that “the change from out-door relief to the safer system of relief in the workhouse, has (it is said) been found practicable throughout a large part of Ireland, not excepting some districts which suffered most severely during the famine.” [Sidenote: Decrease of out-door relief.]The conclusion of the harvest was as usual followed by an increase of applicants for relief, but the extent of workhouse accommodation being now greater by 70,000 than in the previous year, out-door relief instead of increasing actually continued to decrease until the end of December, when the numbers so relieved amounted to 95,468, the number in the workhouses being then 194,547. At the end of March 1850, the number on the out-relief lists was 131,702, and in the workhouses 224,381, the sanitary state of the houses being at the same time satisfactory. No