The number of voluntary charities in Ireland maintained by private benevolence, independently of any contribution from general or local taxation, said to be very great, and they are stated to be most liberally supported. “Among them will be found schools, hospitals, Magdalen asylums, houses of refuge, orphan establishments, lying-in hospitals, societies for relief of the sick and indigent, mendicity associations, and charitable loans.” Yet notwithstanding the existence of these multifarious institutions, and the active exercise of private benevolence, and the frequent collections by the clergy of all persuasions,[52] “the committee have not the satisfaction to hope that more is accomplished than the mitigation of distress.” Societies for the suppression of mendicity have it is said been formed in many parts of Ireland, on a plan similar to those established in London, Bath, and other places in England. In Dublin the income of the Mendicity Society amounts to 7,000_l._, and the committee are informed “that although the voluntary contributions are scarcely sufficient to maintain the establishment, still on the whole, supporting the poor as they do, they have enough.” When the funds are very low, a threat is held out either of applying to parliament for a power of compulsory assessment, or else that the poor people supported by the society will be discharged into the streets, “and by these means additional subscriptions are called in.” Institutions of this kind, supported by private contributions, are said to be complained of as casting an unfair and unequal burden upon the benevolent, and it has been suggested that they should be supported or at least aided by local assessment: but this suggestion, the committee observe, involves the entire principle of a poor-law, a question on which at that advanced period of the session they are not prepared to enter. They however recommend it as a subject for future consideration and inquiry. ----- [52] Dr. Doyle in his evidence before the committee, stated that the poor were almost exclusively supported by the middle classes; and that “although these form a class not over numerous, and subject to great pressure, still of the million and a half or two millions now expended to support the Irish poor, nearly the entire falls upon the farmers and the other industrious classes.” ----- [Sidenote: Emigration.]