"The decline of the population has been greatest in Connaught; now the Commissioners tell us that in 1847 the maximum rate of mortality in the workhouses of that province was 43.6 per week in a thousand persons, so that in about 23 weeks at this rate the whole 1000 would be dead. The maximum rate of mortality in all the workhouses in that year was 25 per 1000 weekly, or the whole 1000 would die in something more than 39 weeks. That was surely a very frightful mortality. It took place among that part of the population for which room was found in the workhouses; and among the population out of the workhouses perishing by the wayside, the mortality must have been still more frightful. We are happy to believe, on the assurance of the commissioners, that matters are now improved, that workhouse accommodation is to be had—with one exception, Kilrush—for all who need it; that the expense of keeping the poor is diminished; that contagious disorders are less frequent, and that the rate of mortality has much declined. But the statement that such improvements have taken place, implies the greatness of the past sufferings. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the decay of the population has partly arisen from increased mortality on the one hand, and from decreasing marriages and decreasing births on the other. Now that the Irish have a poor-law fairly administered, we may expect that, in future, such terrible scenes as were witnessed in 1847-49 will not again occur. But the state which authorized the landlords, by a law, to clear their estates of the peasantry, as if they were vermin, destroying, as we have seen, 268,153 dwellings, without having previously imposed on those landlords the obligation of providing for the people, did a great wrong, and the decay of the people now testifies against it. "With reference to emigration—the least objectionable mode of getting rid of a population—there are no correct returns kept of the number of Irish who emigrate, because a great part of them go from Liverpool, and are set down in the returns as emigrants from England. It is supposed by those best acquainted with the subject, that more than nine-tenths of the emigrants from Liverpool are Irish. Taking that proportion, therefore, and adding it to the emigrants who proceed direct from Ireland, the number of Irish emigrants from 1842 to the present year was— 1843 39,549 │ 1847 214,970 1844 55,910 │ 1848 177,720 1845 76,523 │ 1849 208,759 1846 106,767 │ 1850 207,853 — │ — Total, 4 years, 278,749 │ Total, 4 years, 809,302 Total, 8 years 1,088,051.