lings and twopence per diem was found in two
instances to have been paid ... I fear there was not, in all cases,
sufficient sympathy for the present sufferings of the poor--a feeling
quite compatible with a firm and honest discharge of duty. This inflames
the minds of the people against the system generally, and they become
victims alike to their own intemperance, and the mismanagement of those
placed over them. Throughout the country, in the majority of cases,
disturbances are attributable wholly, or in a great degree, to such
errors, overseers acting more as slave-drivers than as the messengers of
benevolence to an afflicted but warm-hearted people."--_A Twelvemonth's
Residence in Ireland during the Famine and the Public Works, with
suggestions to meet the coming crisis. By William Henry Smith, C.E.,
late conducting Engineer of Public Works. London, 1848; p. 94._

Again: "I much regretted leaving, and but for the circumstance of some
imperative engagements recalling me to London, my intended sojourn of
two or three months, which I originally named to the Commissioners,
would probably have been prolonged even beyond what it eventually was,
amongst a people whom I saw no reason to fear, even when using necessary
severity, but on the contrary every reason to admire, from their
strongly affectionate dispositions and resignation in deep suffering:
they treated it as the will of God, and murmured, 'Thy will be
done.'"--_Ibid. p. 18._

[148] "In cases where disturbances arose in any one district, the works
of the whole barony were suspended, inflicting injury upon all, the
guilty and innocent indiscriminately."--_Ibid. p. 93._

[149] See Note p. 203, from Mr. Smith's valuable book, _A Twelvemonth's
Residence in Ireland_.

[150] Board of Works Series, vol. L, p. 53.

[151] On the 8th of February, 1847, during the debate on the "Poor
Relief (Ireland) Bill," in the House of Commons, Lord Duncan said, "He
found it stated in the Blue Book he had referred to, that the two
members for Clare had put tenants upon the relief-rate who were paying
them considerable rents. He trusted that they would be prepared to deny
this serious imputation."

Major M'Namara rose and said:--"Sir--As one of the members for Clare, I
beg to say, that every sentence in Captain Wynne's letter is a malicious
falsehood. (Some sensation, amid which the hon. member resumed his
sat)."

[152] He thus complains in italics: "_None of the gentry will take ou