ABSTRACT
p not the people of England and Scotland imagine that they can allow the poor of Ireland to be left to perish without bringing a just punishment on their own heads. Thousands of these unfortunate creatures have already found their way to Liverpool and Glasgow, driven by misery and famine, and tens of thousands will follow in the course of the next few months, unless relief is furnished to them in their own country. The Irish workhouses are full, crowded almost to suffocation; and as outdoor relief is rigorously refused in Ireland, except on the government works, multitudes of poor creatures, rather than lie down and die, have spent their last shilling in getting over to England, feeling convinced that they will not, be allowed to perish in the streets. In this expectation they have not been deceived, so far at least as Liverpool is concerned, for, though they have no legal claim on that parish, and though the ruinous consequences of relieving them are evident, the magistrates have thought it better to make every sacrifice, and to encounter every risk, rather than to take the consequences, either of refusing them relief in England, or of sending them back to Ireland,. In either case they would have perished by thousands, from absolute starvation. The effect of removing them may, however, be seen in the following statement of the number of persons relieved casually in a single week in Liverpool, made at the last meeting of the special vestry of that parish, held on Tuesday the 12th of January instant.
