The figures and facts recorded above will probably astonish the considerable class of persons to whom the word "Irish" has an air of wanting something, unless it is followed by "pauper." A smaller but perhaps not less intelligent class--that of English travellers in Ireland--will promptly jump to the conclusion that the figures are cooked; they will argue, "We have travelled in Ireland, and have been beset with beggars; how, then, can the country be so free from pauperism? Surely the true state of the case is that the people keep out of the workhouses merely in order to live on public charity in another form?" It cannot, I regret to say, be denied that mendicancy is very common in Ireland; so common as to be little less than a national scandal. There is, however, something to be said in mitigation of judgment, though perhaps not in defence. It is a matter in which figures are of little use; for no one could, by any possibility, estimate how many persons live wholly by begging. That there are in every community some persons who do may be taken as certain. That their number is larger in proportion to the bulk of the population in a Roman Catholic than in a Protestant community, is antecedently probable. The theory of the Roman Catholic religion positively encourages mendicancy. It is held to be no sin to live on alms, and to be a positive merit to give alms. _Never turn away thy face from any poor man_, is a text acted on by devout Romanists in its most literal acceptation. The result is not difficult to foresee. It must, however, be recorded to the credit of the Irish Catholic clergy, that they are beginning to see the folly of indiscriminate almsgiving; and though they are hampered in no small degree by the traditions of their Church, they have made many successful efforts in the direction of the organization of charity. Another influence, which largely contributes to the existence of the mendicancy that scandalizes the traveller, is the tradition of recent poverty. The habits of centuries are not effaced in a generation. Not much more than twenty years ago, begging was a recognized necessity in the life of the Irish poor. But now, when times are moderately prosperous, begging is limited almost wholly to old people who hang about the doors of Catholic chapels, and about places frequented by tourists. On the roads leading to such "show places," also, the tourist will be often beset by little knots of children clamouring for half-pence; but these are no more professional beggars than a gentleman who amuses himself with pheasant shooting is a professional dealer in game. It is a form of excitement with them; not a very high one to be sure, but not meaner or more vicious than baccarat or rouge-et-noir.