In 1825 an Act was passed ‘to amend the Laws respecting Deserted Children in Ireland.’ After referring to previous Acts, which provide that the sum of 5_l._ sterling shall be leviable on any parish for the support of each deserted child found therein, it proceeds—“and whereas the sum of 5_l._ is now required to be paid previous to the reception of any such deserted child into the General Foundling Hospital of Dublin, transmitted from any such parish; and whereas no fund at present exists either to pay the expense of maintaining such deserted children in the parishes wherein found, or of transmitting them to the city of Dublin”—It is therefore enacted that it shall henceforward be lawful “for the several parishes in Ireland to raise and levy such additional sum as may be necessary for maintaining such deserted children as shall be found therein, until such children shall be admitted into the foundling hospital aforesaid, and for transmitting such children thither.” But it is further provided that no greater sum than fifty shillings shall be raised in any one year for the support of any such deserted child, or for its transmission to the foundling hospital in Dublin. The city and liberties of Cork are exempted from the provisions of the Act, which is limited to two years. It will not fail to be observed that this Act gives a legislative sanction to the rating of a parish for the relief of a destitute class “found therein,” and so far may be said to amount to a species of poor-law. The foregoing are the only Acts requiring to be noticed, between the period of the Union and the passing of the Irish Poor Relief Act in 1838. They show the feeling of the legislature with regard to the state of Ireland, and seem to point to further measures as being necessary for amending its social defects. But in the interval there were moreover several commissions appointed by the crown, and several committees of parliament, whose reports contain much valuable information as to the state of the country and the condition of the people at the respective periods; and some of the more prominent of these we will now proceed to notice. [Sidenote: 1804. Report of committee of house of commons respecting the poor in Ireland.]