"What I now contend for is this—that in a particular part of Great Britain there are certain workhouses, asylums for the destitute, supervised by salaried inspectors, directly under the cognizance of the Government, in which the crowding of the sick is most shameful, the diet equally so. The mortality for the weeks ending January 25 to March 22—484, upon a population which in those weeks never exceeded 5200 souls! I believe these to be facts which cannot be disputed, and I claim on them the immediate interference of the Government, and the more especially as the chairman of this union makes a public favourable comparison between it and the union of Ennistymon, in the same county. I am myself prepared, on very short notice, to go over at my own expense with any person of respectability from this country, appointed by Government, and I have no doubt we shall prove that I have, if any thing, understated matters; if so, am I wrong, sir, in saying, that such a state of things, within a twenty hours' journey from London, is in a sad and shameful contrast to the expected doings of the 'World's Fair' on English ground? _When, the other day, I looked on the Crystal Palace, and thought of Kilrush workhouse, as I have seen it and now know it to be, I confess I felt, as a Christian and the subject of a Christian Government, utter disgust._ Again, sir, I thank you from my heart for your indulgence to these my cries for justice for Ireland." Alas! poor country, where each hour teems with a new grievance; where tyranny is so much a custom that the very institutions which have charity written upon their front are turned to dangerous pest-houses, slaving shops, or tombs; where to toil even to extremity is to be rewarded with semi-starvation in styes, and, perhaps, by sudden eviction, and a grave by the wayside; where to entertain certain religious convictions is to invite the whips of persecution, and the particular tyranny of the landlord who adheres to the Church of England; where to speak the faith of the heart, the opinions of the mind, is to sacrifice the food doled out by the serf-holders; where to live is to be considered a glorious mercy—to hope, something unfit for common men. The struggles and achievements of Con McNale, as related in "Household Words," give us a tolerably truthful representation of the milder features of Irish peasant life. Con had better luck than most of his class, and knew better how to improve it. Yet the circumstances of his existence were certainly not those of a freeman:—