A history of the Irish poor law, in connexion with the condition of the people

by Sir George Nicholls

Cholera breaks out.

In the month of March a new enemy appeared, cholera having broken out in the western and south-western unions, whence it afterwards extended to other parts of the country. The disease however assumed its most virulent form in the above unions, and proved extensively fatal to the inmates of the workhouses, as well as to the population generally. Great exertions were made to check its ravages; but the commissioners express their regret that a want of means had crippled their efforts, and in some urgent cases they had been obliged to apply for permission to appropriate a limited portion of the funds placed at their disposal by government, to provide the means of treatment for cholera patients, at a time when they were anxious to apply every sum remitted to them to the purchase of food for the in-door and out-door poor in the distressed unions. After a time the cholera disappeared from most of the unions in the west and south, but at the date of the Report it still prevailed with much virulence in other parts of Ireland.

Extent of relief and mortality.

The inmates of the several workhouses in the first week of March 1849 amounted to 196,523, and the weekly mortality to 9½ per 1,000. In the first week of May the number of inmates was 220,401, with a mortality of 12½ per 1,000. At the end of June the inmates were 214,867, and the mortality was reduced to 6¼ per 1,000. The numbers receiving out-relief at the three periods respectively were 592,705—646,964—and 768,902. These numbers show the extent of distress to which the people had been reduced by famine and disease in the last four disastrous years. This is also evidenced by the inquests held in cases of alleged death through actual want, the number of which in the first five months of 1849 amounted to 431. The suffering must necessarily indeed have been greater in each successive year than in the one preceding, since the general means were being continually reduced by the failure of the crops, the weakest and poorest of the people suffering first, then those a degree above them, and so on, until the comparatively well-to-do occupier of a few acres of land who had contributed to the relief of others, is himself dragged down to the condition of the lowest.

Extension of workhouse accommodation.

A conviction appears to have become very general, that the abuses and shortcomings incidental to out-door relief, especially when administered on a large scale, cannot be altogether prevented; and that in-door relief is preferable, not only under ordinary circumstances, but in seasons of severe distress like the present. Hence the guardians had hired building after building in aid of the workhouses at first provided; and the entire accommodation, which was originally calculated for 100,000 inmates, and which during the previous year had been increased to 150,000, had now been so far extended as to be equal to the accommodation of 250,000. On this circumstance and the convictions out of which it arose, the commissioners chiefly founded their hope of securing an effective and economical administration of the law. It will be their duty, they say, to give a right direction to these views, by endeavouring to make the auxiliary establishments effective in point of classification and discipline, and to reduce where practicable the expenses of management; and if their efforts should be assisted by the gradual return of agricultural prosperity in the western and south-western parts of Ireland, they confidently expect at no very distant period to be enabled to withhold the exercise of the exceptional power confided to them in the 2nd section of the Relief Extension Act,[^[170]] or at least to confine its operation within very narrow limits.

Restriction of relief to the workhouse.

The fact that in 25 of the unions no relief was given except in the workhouse is mentioned in the Report of the preceding year.[^[171]] Several unions which then gave out-relief have since ceased to do so, and the number in which relief is restricted to the workhouse was now 35. In the great majority of these unions the result of such restrictions had been in all respects satisfactory. The applications of proper objects were not refused, and yet there had been sufficient means for relieving all the really destitute, whilst except in cases where epidemic disease had prevailed in the neighbourhood, and been thence imparted to the inmates, the workhouses of these unions had generally been healthy. In some instances however where the destitution was severe and wide-spreading, and where the auxiliary houses had been insufficient or defective, the adherence to in-door relief exclusively was less satisfactory. The insufficiency of workhouse accommodation led to overcrowding, and thence arose disease, fed and aggravated by the continual influx of destitute persons in a state of utter exhaustion, or bearing about them the seeds of the prevalent malady. In all such cases, and they were not many, the guardians were urged to resort to those provisions of the Act which empower them to afford out-door relief, until they had provided the necessary accommodation for enabling them to restrict it to the workhouse without endangering life, or violating the principle of the Poor Law.

Mortality among the administrators of the law.

In connection with workhouse relief, the mortality which took place among the officers and other poor-law officials ought to be noticed, as illustrating the duties which the exigencies of the service required from them. The subject has already been adverted to as creating difficulty in obtaining suitable persons to fill these offices.[^[172]] Although not so great in the present year as in 1846-7, the deaths of workhouse officers by fever or cholera amounted to no less than seventy, including nine chaplains and eight medical officers. Seven of the vice-guardians likewise fell victims to disease in the discharge of their arduous duties, as well as eight of the temporary inspectors, together with Mr. Hancock, who had acted under the commission from the commencement, first as assistant-commissioner and then as inspector.[^[173]]