The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-02-13 00:00:00

SECTION 111

The relief of Irish distress for the last few years ha
borne very hard on the English tax-payers, and they hay,

• 1
Lion of the relief funds, although it would perhaps have
been better to have made use of former experience and to
have taken care that the poor got more than a third of
the money, we will defer the consideration of this subject
to a future period.
There can be no doubt as to the fact of the people of
England being very justly taxed, in order that they should
bear the burden of the wretchedness and poverty which
they themselves have been encouraging and subscribing
to for some years. If the doctrines taught by the Col-
lege of Maynooth have disseminated fraud, idleness,
mendicancy, deceit, and perjury through the whole land,
England has had her share in ravine for the noison. and

• • .
it is just that she should pay the doctor's bill and the
funeral expenses.
, First let us take mendicancy as an example. •

Before the late famine, I should say that the number
of sturdy beggars who were continually patrolling through
the Roman Catholic districts of Ireland, amounted to
upwards of a million of souls. These vagrants went from
house to house, not asking, but demanding relief, " in
the honour of God," as they blasphemously called it.
In a sort of canting whine used only by mendicants,
they would keep on till they obtained their demand, when
they " hoped you might rest in the bed of heaven"—that
" want might never come near your door"—that " the
great God might increase your store," &c. If refused,
they would call down the most blasphemous and bitter
curses upon the heads of yourself and all your breed, seed,
and generation. The relief given was not in money, but
a fistful of oatmeal from the meal-chest, or a handful of
potatoes. It was a mere trifle to each person, but as there
were from ten to fifteen callers daily at every house, the
poor people gave away very large sums annually, varying
from two to ten pounds' worth annually, according to
their circumstances.

These vagrants and their families were often infinitely
better off than some who gave them relief. They could
always get potatoes, milk, and oatmeal, not only sufficient
for their own wants, but enough to enable them to barter
potatoes and oatmeal for whiskey and other luxuries.
They carried their bedding about with them, and also its
other inhabitants; and no poor Roman Catholic dare to
refuse them a night's lodging whenever demanded, as it
would be what their priest would call " turning the poor
from their door."

We sometimes in this country feel how heavy the poor-
rates fall upon our resources, but it is doubtful in my
mind whether the poor-rates in England ever amounted
to anything like the value taken in kind from the small
farmers of Ireland by this crusade of mendicants. Pro-
bably it amounted to more than ten millions annually ;
and this sum drawn from the most industrious part of the
community !
Imagine for one moment the effect of this blister upon
the prosperity of the country : their language too blas-
phemous to be repeated, using God's name upon the most
frivolous occasions, and calling upon him solemnly to
witness any lie which they thought would extract alms—
imprecating savage curses on those who refused to give—
averse to all kinds of labour, and rolling in filth and ver-
min.