the mode of employing
persons by task work did not answer the expectations that were formed of
it, there should be a recurrence to daily pay, at such rates as might be
fixed with the sanction of the Lord Lieutenant.

As soon as the Relief Commissioners entered upon their duties, they drew
up a code of rules for the information and guidance of Relief
Committees.

The following are the principal:

1. Relief Committees to be under the regulating control of a Finance
Committee for each Union.

2. As to funds:--local or other subscriptions, with donations from
Government and moneys in hand of Poorlaw Guardians, to be regarded as
appropriated rates on electoral divisions, where needed.

3. The funds in hands of existing Relief Committees were to be generally
available for Committees under the new Act.

4. Relief to be given exclusively in food; gratuitously to the
absolutely desolate; by reasonable prices to such, as were in
employment, or had the means of purchasing.

5. There was to be a Government Inspector of every Union, who was to be
an _ex-officio_ member of every Committee under the Act in the Union.

9. Persons requiring relief were to be classed under _four_ heads,
namely: (1) Those who were destitute, helpless or impotent; (2)
Destitute able-bodied persons not holding land; (3) Destitute
able-bodied persons who were holders of small portions of land; (4) The
able-bodied employed at wages insufficient for their support, when the
price of food was very high.

10. The first three classes to get gratuitous relief, but the fourth to
be relieved by the sale of food of a cheap description: and it was
specially laid down that there were to be "no gratuitous supplies of
food to them." "This," say the Instructions, "is to be a fixed rule."
Yet it was afterwards modified with regard to class 4: the clause
saying "they were to be relieved by the sale of food of a cheap
description" did not, it would seem, mean that such food was to be sold
under its value. This was represented as a hardship, and on the 11th of
May the Relief Commissioners ruled, that with regard to the price of
food to class 4, "any food cooked in a boiler might be sold under first
cost."

12. Persons receiving wages, or refusing hire, to be excluded from
gratuitous relief.

15. To entitle holders of land to gratuitous relief, it should be
absolutely required of them to proceed with the cultivation of their
land.

The relief lists were to be r