These persons contribute nothing to the poor,
except the various evils which their absence entails upon them.
On the other hand, the resident gentry never in any case assist a
beggar, even in the remote parts of the country, where there are no
Mendicity Institutions. Nor do the beggars ever think of applying to
them. They know that his honor's dogs would be slipped at them; or that
the whip might be laid, perhaps, to the shoulders of a broken-hearted
father, with his brood of helpless children wanting food; perhaps, upon
the emaciated person of a miserable widow, who begs for her orphans,
only because the hands that supported, and would have defended both her
and them, are mouldered into dust.
Upon the middle and lower classes, therefore, comes directly the heavy
burden of supporting the great mass of pauperism that presses upon
Ireland. It is certain that the Irish landlords know this, and that they
are reluctant to see any law enacted which might make the performance of
their duties to the poor compulsory. This, indeed, is natural in men who
have so inhumanly neglected them.
But what must the state of a country be where those who are on the way
to pauperism themselves are exclusively burdened with the support of
the vagrant poor? It is like putting additional weight on a man already
sinking under the burden he bears.
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