Many persons have felt a terror at the idea of the taxation they supposed they should have to suffer under a poor-law; but the great probability, nay, almost the certainty of the matter, is, that it will be a considerable saving to them. The present rate in Dublin is 1s. in the pound for the year, on a very moderate valuation, and much more than half the rate is borne by landlords.[1] This, however, appears to be beyond the intention of the law as to town property, for which inordinate rents are not usually obtained; but the result is within the control of the Guardians, who may revise the valuation whenever they propose to levy a new rate. The expense of the relief, even under higher rates, would be less, far less, on those who have hitherto supported the poor, than the outlay which they have annually made for that object; and now they will have the satisfaction of knowing that what they give is given to the destitute poor; that all is well applied, none misspent, and every part so economized in distribution, that the sum contributed relieves a greater number of poor than the larger sum formerly given in alms. It must also be considered, that the poorer classes subsisting by labour will be relieved by the workhouses from the continual encroachments of beggars on their scanty meals, and the still more scanty means of lodging possessed by them. Let the opponent of such a provision for the poor--if any reflecting person in the country can on public grounds be opposed to it--let him, we say, contemplate the hard lot of the labouring classes, compelled by the importunities of beggars not only to give up a considerable share of the food actually insufficient for themselves, but also to divide their beds or their children’s beds with persons of the lowest habits, and thus see their families deprived of food, of rest, health, and morality; while a large number of the wealthy classes remained listless and inaccessible within their closed doors, or were exercising their better feelings in a distant land. We do not accuse the wealthy members of society, as a class, with indifference to the wants of the poor: we but refer to a contrast between _their_ security against the intrusion of mendicants, and the defenceless state of the labouring classes--a contrast which doubtless must have been ever present to the mind of the poor working man: and we do this to show how much the wealthy will gain by a law which provides safe means for its application in relieving poverty. The expense, then, which we are now incurring, is not a new charge, but a wise and equitable distribution of one heretofore borne by portions of the community in very disproportionate shares, without having any tendency to obviate the mendicancy by which it was created, but, on the contrary, having a direct tendency to foster and increase that most demoralizing of all the conditions in life.