Be the expense what it may, it cannot tend to induce a more extensive reliance on the public provision than mendicancy has encouraged: nay, we maintain, that when the law shall have been for a short time in full and general operation, the number of unemployed and dependent poor will gradually decline. But expectation must have a little patience: the machinery for sustaining in orderly and decent comfort upwards of one hundred thousand human beings, cannot be created otherwise than by a very gradual process. This is not a clime in which men and families can be encamped: when they are to be lodged, durable structures must be provided, and for this work much time is necessary. We are sure that no time has been lost; nay, we regard the progress made as among the most accelerated public labours of this or any other country. In the mean time, the law is not without working out much good for the labouring classes. Workmen of every grade have been busily employed in the construction of workhouses since the spring of 1839, for which object government has advanced upwards of a million of money, free of interest, for ten years after the commencement of relief in each Union. We are, however, reasoning without having an argument opposed to us; for any thing like argument against the law we have not heard. In Dublin it is merely complained, that although houses are open and rates levied, the mendicants still throng the streets. But it is not shown that any thing like the same number of apparently deserving objects of relief are to be seen; they on the contrary are in the workhouses, maintained by the rates; and were it not for the poor children whom the mendicants drag along with them, the imposture would soon be stopped by its own want of success. The policy of the law contemplates the repression of beggary and vagrancy, and all those disorders and crimes which accompany or have their origin in those habits--the encouragement of a more productive industry--the more universal recognition of the identity of interest amongst all classes affected by the law--and with the cordial co-operation of all the intelligent classes of society which it has hitherto received, and will probably receive yet further hereafter--there cannot be a doubt but that the law, when in full operation, will realize all this, and more. To those who wish for an exemplification of the favourable working of the law, we recommend the perusal of a little work lately published under the title of “Benevola,” in which the English and Irish systems of relief are well contrasted, and the tendency of the Irish provision is ingeniously exemplified. To those who will not be satisfied without a practical exemplification, we can only recommend patience; but we will say--Do not in the mean time forget the cost and other deplorable evils of Irish mendicancy. F.