In the appendix to the last Annual Report of the Commissioners there is a tabular statement, showing at one view the number and names of the Unions which have been declared up to April last--the area in statute acres, and population of each--the number of Guardians respectively--with other particulars, including indeed every thing necessary to afford satisfactory information on the subject; and, but that it would occupy a great deal of space, we would gladly transfer it to our columns. Having thus briefly noticed the three leading points indispensably preliminary to the working of the poor-law, namely, 1st, the _Unions_, or districts within which each local administration is to be comprised; 2dly, the _Guardians_, or local administrators of the law; and, 3dly, the _Workhouses_ or buildings designed for the reception of the destitute poor, it only remains to add a few observations relative to certain topics on which there has been a good deal of discussion, and concerning which a clear opinion has not yet been arrived at by many. In the first place, there has been much misconception as to the true nature of the work which the act of Parliament devolved upon the Commissioners of Poor-Laws. That such is the case, is evident from the many applications which have been made to them from time to time to afford relief in different districts under various circumstances of distress, as though the Commissioners possessed any general powers for this purpose. The applications were not indeed at all surprising. “Hunger,” saith the proverb, “will break through stone walls;” and it was not to be expected that those who witnessed and deeply sympathised with numerous and touching instances of extreme destitution would be very nice in scanning the phraseology or exact intendments of an act of Parliament. However, in reality the Commissioners had no power to act in any manner different from that which the legislative chart, if we may use the phrase, had prescribed to them. Their mission was to fulfil the great work of founding and bringing into operation an extensive system of poor relief, not to distribute a bounty, or immediately to afford relief in any specific case of distress, however urgent. Their task was formidable and onerous; and if the accomplishment of it has appeared to some to have been tedious in its course, it may well be asked, wherein has there been a failure of any means necessary to the end, or by what better means could the work have been made to advance more speedily and more securely to completion, than by those which have been employed? The law, it may be said, has as yet been brought to bear on the wants of the poor only in the Unions of Cork and Dublin. True; but for this the law itself, or that process which it made imperative in order to effect the essential and solid purposes which it had in view, is alone answerable.