of real famine it would have been very difficult to resist. Such was the plan resolved upon for the campaign of 1846-7 against the approaching famine, and we shall now show the result of the struggle. It was hoped that a breathing-time would have been allowed at the season of harvest, to enable the Board of Works to reorganize their establishments on a scale proportioned to the magnitude of the task about to devolve on them, and to prepare, through their district officers, plans and estimates of suitable works for the assistance of the baronial sessions. This interval was not obtained. The general failure of the potato crop spread despondency and alarm from one end of Ireland to the other, and induced every class of persons to throw themselves upon the Government for aid. On the 6th of September, the Lord Lieutenant ordered all the discontinued works under the 9 & 10 Vic., c. 1, to be recommenced, and sessions were rapidly held in all the southern and western counties of Ireland, at which roads were presented in the mass, under the 9 & 10 Vic., c. 107, the cost of which, in some cases, much exceeded the annual rental of the barony. The resident gentry and rate-payers, whose duty it was to ascertain, as far as possible, the probable amount of destitution in their neighbourhood, the sum required to relieve it, and the works upon which that sum could best be expended, and who had the necessary local knowledge, in almost every case devolved these functions upon the Board of Works, who could only act on such information as they could obtain from naval and military officers and engineers, most of whom were selected from among strangers to the district, in order to prevent undue influence being used. After that, to advance the funds; to select the labourers; to superintend the work; to pay the people weekly; to enforce proper performance of the labour; if the farm works were interrupted, to ascertain the quantity of labour required for them; to select and draft off the proper persons to perform it; to settle the wages to be paid to them by the farmers, and see that they were paid; to furnish food, not only for all the destitute out of doors, but in some measure for the paupers in the workhouses, were the duties which the Government and its officers were called upon to perform. The proprietors and associated rate-payers having presented _indefinitely_, said it was the fault of the Government and its officers if the people were not instantly employed, and these officers were blamed, even by persons of character and understanding, if they were not at once equal to execute the duties which in this country are performed in their respective districts by thousands of country gentlemen, magistrates, guardians, overseers, surveyors, &c., resident throughout the country, and trained by the experience of years to the performance of their various functions. The Board of Works became the centre of a colossal