d in the week
ending the 28th of November, the returns give the number as something
over 285,000! A fortnight later, in a detailed account of the operations
of the Board, supplied to the Treasury, this remarkable sentence occurs:
"The works at present are in every county in Ireland, affording
employment to _more than_ three hundred thousand persons."[157] The
increase went on rapidly through December. In the week ending the 5th of
that month, there were 321,000 employed; and in the week which closed on
the 26th, the extraordinary figure was 398,000![158]

The number of persons employed was greatest in Munster, and least in
Ulster. At the beginning of December, they were thus distributed in the
four Provinces: Ulster, 30,748; Leinster, 50,135; Connaught, 106,680;
and Munster, 134,103. At the close of the month the same proportion was
pretty fairly maintained, the numbers being: for Ulster, 45,487; for
Leinster, 69,585; for Connaught, 119,946; and for Munster, 163,213.
According to the Census of 1841, there were in Ulster 439,805 families;
in Leinster, 362,134; in Connaught, 255,694; and in Munster, 415,154.
From these data, the proportion between the number of persons employed
on the relief works in each Province, and the population of that
Province, stood thus at the close of the year 1846: in Ulster there was
one labourer out of every nine and two-thirds families so employed; in
Leinster there was one out of about every five and a quarter families;
in Munster, one out of every two and a-half families; and in Connaught,
one out of every two and about one-seventh families.

At the end of November, the number of employees superintending the
public works were: 62 inspecting officers; 60 engineers and county
surveyors; 4,021 overseers; 1,899 check clerks; 5 draftsmen; 54 clerks
for correspondence; 50 clerks for accounts; 32 pay inspectors, and 425
pay clerks--making in all 6,913 officials, distributed over nine
distinct departments.

The gross amount of wages rose, of course, in proportion to the numbers
employed. At the end of October, the sum paid weekly was L61,000; at the
end of November, L101,000; and for the week ending the 26th of December,
L154,472.

The number of Relief Committees in operation throughout the country at
the close of 1846, was about one thousand. Indeed, everything connected
with the Public Works and the Famine tends to impress one with their
gigantic proportions;--even the correspondence, the st