ABSTRACT
We had a case which I wish to mention to the Committee as illustrating the system, when you resort to compulsory removals, how the people return upon you. It was a case in which at the time I felt great sympathy; it was the case of Bridget Mulloy, the mother of six legitimate children, and a widow. I considered at the time, as all her children had been born in England, that it was an exceedingly great hardship to remove the woman to Ireland, and the Board of Guardians expressed themselves to the relieving officer not to put the law in force. She unfortunately had an illegitimate child; that disentitled her to out-door relief, except with the sanction of the Poor Law Board; it had been our rule never to transmit a case of that kind to the Poor Law Board, except we could allege an extenuation of the misconduct. However, the parish officers removed her, and, as I said before, I felt great sympathy with the woman; she was removed on the 3rd of April; she came back in a very few days, and had an order given to her to go into our workhouse. On her being brought before the Board, I asked her how she had come back; she said that she had been taken before the Lord Mayor of Dublin; that she had presented the case; that the case had been explained by some of the officials in the administration of the Poor Law in Dublin, and that the Lord Mayor had given her 23310s to come back. She came back and she was again removed on the 26th; and I am sorry to say I can give the Committee no further account of her. Perhaps the Committee will wonder, as her removal and that of her family, in the first instance, cost £2. 18s 2d., how she came back with 10s. In the first place, we are obliged to pay the expense to put the law in motion; there is then the cost of conveyance by railway, and the packet fare from Liverpool to Dublin; sometimes it is 2s. 6d., sometimes it is 5s. There are two prices in those packets; one in going from England to Ireland, but a less charge in coming back; and the woman would get herself brought from Dublin to Liverpool for 1s., two of her children brought for another shilling, and she could get back to Liverpool with her family, perhaps for 4s. Then she could come upon the railway for about four railway fares, at 1s. 3d. each; so that the 10s. which the Lord Mayor of Dublin gave her amply covered the expense back. I merely mention this as an illustration of what I know is an exceedingly common occurrence. I recollect a case perfectly well; I have not the name here; I think it occurred before 1851, soon after the Irish famine, where a family of I think, the name Branigan were removed compulsorily from Chester; the neighbours made a collection to bring them back again; it was given to the woman in the presence of the removing officer, and she was back as soon as the relieving officer. I merely mention this, to show that where there is a will there is a way; and if England is better than Ireland, they will find their way back … There is scarcely a Board-day when an Irish case does not come before us, or even an English case which is unsettled, when the case is not debated in principle. I have illustrated it by bringing to notice, if the power of removal were put into operation, whether in cases of English or Irish removal, the hardships to which it would subject the poor, and I have never heard from our guardians a dissenting remark.
