IRISH POOR.
The poor of England have suffered much and deeply from the change made in the administration of the poor laws in 1795; but of late years they have suffered still more from the influx of Irish paupers. Great Britain has been overrun by half-famished hordes, that have, by their competition, lessened the wages of labour, and by their example, degraded the habits, and lowered the opinions of the people with respect to subsistence. The facilities of conveyance afforded by steam-navigation are such, that the merest beggar, provided he can command a sixpence, may get himself carried from Ireland to England. And when such is the fact—when what may almost without a metaphor be termed floating bridges, have been established between Belfast and Glasgow, and Dublin and Liverpool—does any one suppose, that if no artificial obstacles be thrown in the way of emigration, or if no efforts be made to provide an outlet in some other quarter for the pauper population of Ireland, we shall escape being overrun by it? It is not conceivable that, with the existing means of intercourse, wages should continue to be, at an average, 20d. per day in England, and only 4d. or 5d. in Ireland. So long as the Irish paupers find that they can improve their condition by coming to England, thither they will come. At this moment, five or six millions of beggars are all of them turning their eyes, and many of them directing their steps to this land of promise! The locusts that "will eat up every blade of grass, and every green thing," are already on the wing.—Edin. Rev.
According to the parliamentary returns of 1815, the number of paupers receiving parochial relief in England amounts to 895,336, in a population of 11,360,505, or about one-twelfth of the whole community.
There are many on the continent who might far better have been treading their turnip-fields, or superintending their warehouses at home, than traversing the Alps, criticising the Pantheon, or loitering through the galleries of the Vatican.
Twenty years ago there were at Saffet and at Jerusalem but a small number of Polish Jews—some few hundreds at the most; there are now, at the very least, 10,000.
Bishop Watson compares a geologist to a gnat mounted on an elephant, and laying down theories as to the whole internal structure of the vast animal, from the phenomena of the hide.
It is the harmony of strong contrasts in which greatness of character truly dwells. As it rises, its variety and rich profusion, only remind us of those southern mountains, whose majestic ascent combines the fruits of every latitude, and the temperature of every clime; the vineyard is scattered around its base to gladden, and the corn-field waves above to support, the family of man: mount a little higher, and the traveller is surrounded by the deep, umbrageous forest, whilst the next elevation will place his foot on its magnificent diadem of eternal snows.—Edin. Rev.