"Collected at Kilworth, county of Cork, local subscriptions, £264. 7s. 6d.; Government grant in aid of same, £200,-(in this district, two-thirds the potato crop is represented by the local committee to have been lost); collected at Loughrea, county of Galway, of which the Marquis of Clanricarde gave £500, £820; Government aid, £350,-(one-third the potato crop is lost); collected at Cahir, county of Tipperary, of which Lord Glengal has given £50, £340; Government grant, £240,-(three-fourths the potato crop failed here); collected at Callan, county of Kilkenny, £240; bestowed by the Government, £150,-(one-half the potato crop lost here); collected at Doonas, county of Clare, £380; granted by Government, £250,— (two-thirds of the potato crop lost); collected at Tullow, county of Waterford, £480; granted by Government in aid, £320,-(one-half the crop of potatoes have failed); collected at Bruff, county of Limerick, £250; Government granted £150,-(one-half the crop lost); collected at Tullamore, King's County, £112; Government grant, £75,-(one-half the crop is lost); collected in Arran (islands off the coast of Galway, three in number), £7. 18s. 6d. ; grant from Government, £7. 10s.

"Great dissatisfaction is felt at the smallness of the grant allocated by the Government to the Island of Arran. The people in those islands are deplorably destitute: there is no resident gentry, scarcely a comfortable farmer, and the bulk of the people in every year feel the pinching pressure of want; much more in this year, when three-fourths their crop of potatoes have failed. The owner of the fee of the islands, a Mr. Digby, has, it is said, made himself responsible to the Board of Works for a sum of £600, but no public works have yet been commenced upon the island. To the miserable fund above mentioned, Mr. Digby has not contributed. A letter states that, in the larger island there have occurred since the commencement of the destitution, 157 cases of fever, of which twentyone, or nearly one in seven, have terminated fatally, a rate of mortality unprecedented.

"The Kerry Examiner says:- On Tuesday morning, and Wednesday evening, a large number of mechanics and labourers, followed by a crowd of women and children, paraded our streets in solemn silence. A black flag, mounted on a long pole, and having worked on it the inscription " Employment or Food," was borne by the men at the head of the procession.'

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"The Tipperary Vindicator says:- Many of the tenants and cotters on Sir C. Coote's estates in the parish of Kyle, have been applying at Roscrea for meal and relief. They say that nothing is being done for their relief or employment in that district; yet Captain Sandes, Sir C. Coote's agent, stated some time ago, that no person would be allowed to want on the estates.'

"The situation of the poor in the town of Birr is said to be appalling. Potatoes, 6d. a stone; Indian meal selling by the committee (not for relief) at 1s. 3d. per stone; and, although it has

been strongly impressed on the affluent to enter into subscriptions by Dr. Spain and his clergy, if it was only to lower the markets, as yet there has not been one shilling subscribed. The labouring people, in striving to get one shilling a-day at work, made some display on Thursday morning, and the magistrates have called a meeting of the householders to become special constables, under a penalty of £5. Lord Rosse has acted well all through.

"The accounts from Killenaule, near the borders of Kilkenny, are equally deplorable; yet the local gentry will not subscribe one farthing."

"Of the state of Mallow, in the county of Cork, the Southern Reporter says: The Rev. Justin M'Carthy stated at a meeting of the Committee of Relief at Mallow, that he had been furnished with reports, most carefully made out, of the amount of destitution in four or five townlands of the parish, which may be fairly taken as a sample of the whole. From the returns it appears that the gross population of the districts is 1322, of which number 721 are in a state of great destitution. "I have been told," said the Rev. Gentleman, "by more than one, that they have known persons within the last week to be living on no better food than boiled nettles." Connor Buckley confirmed the statement. He had actually seen the poor creatures gathering nettles to eat. To the best of his belief they had nothing else but the nettles and corn keal.

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Mallow is the district in which a baronet having £14,000 a-year resides, but who refused to subscribe a shilling to the relief fund. Another landlord, with £8000 a-year rental, gave £3!"

And here are a few of the accounts of the state of destitution in the provinces up to July 3rd, 6th, and 8th.

“GALWAY.—The overseers on the Thonabruckey road were on Tuesday obliged to suspend work, in consequence of a large body of destitute labourers presenting themselves for employment, and threatening to inflict a summary vengeance on the stewards unless they were taken on, as they had no means to support either themselves or their families. Mr. Thomas was in danger of being badly treated, having been attacked by one or two of the unfortunate people. Upon an interview with Mr. Clements, the county surveyor, it was arranged, that those longest on the work, and who might be in the least destitute circumstances, should be discharged, in order to afford an opportunity of giving employment to some of the others, as no larger number than what are already on the road could be engaged. It is lamentable to think that such an expedient should have been resorted to; but it could not be avoided, as the Board of Public Works appear determined to limit relief to the famishing poor of this district to the lowest possible scale. We have now advanced to the most trying part of the season; and, unless extensive employment is afforded, we fear much that the privations of the unfortunate labouring poor will force them to the perpetration of outrages,

which the Board of Works have it in their power, and they only, timely to prevent. It is a crime against humanity to expose any number of the destitute poor to the horrors of starvation, while any work of public utility, sanctioned and prayed for by the magistrates and cess-payers, remains to be carried out.

"In a population of about 50,000 persons, the great bulk of whom entirely depend upon daily labour for their maintenance, only 658 are at present receiving any employment in public works in this locality!!! For the entire town, and county of the town of Galway, only about £3,000 has as yet been allocated under the control of the Board of Public Works to relieve this vast mass of human wretchedness! The result is, that thousands of the unfortunate people are literally perishing of hunger, and the lives of the overseers of the works endangered because they are unable, even at 10d. per day, and potatoes still continuing 6d. and 61d. per stone, to give any employment to the famishing creatures who are daily craving to be taken on."-Galway Vindicator.

“OUTRAGE FROM DESTITUTION.-On Monday the 22nd ult., five carts laden with meal for the Oranmore Poor Relief Committee, were coming from Galway. On entrance to the town of Oranmore, the carts were stopped by about two hundred persons from the village of Newtown-Butler, and the meal taken in all directions. On information reaching head-constable R. Rowan, he proceeded to the scene unaccompanied by any other assistance, as his men were all out on duty, and by much exertion and forbearance he succeeded in preserving order and restoring the meal.”—Limerick Examiner.

"We regret to learn that there is great distress in the parish of Kilbannon, and that these works have not yet commenced. There was a very great failure in the potato crop in the large and populous villages of Kilcreevanty, Knocknagur, Leha, Thonemuile, Kilguea, &c., all in the locality. The expenditure of £169 ordered for these works would be of infinite use in this month, the most trying to the poor."-Tuam Herald.

"THE BOARD OF WORKS.-Complaints are reaching us from every quarter of the miserable condition to which the labouring classes are reduced through want of employment,--a want which it appears is entirely owing, either through neglect or some other cause, to the Board of Works. What can be the objects or intentions of the board in delaying the commencement of those works already approved of, and in opposing the memorials forwarded to Government for grants for other undertakings of acknowledged utility? In Galway the effects of this delay and opposition are fearful, and will be worse if something is not immediately done to afford sufficient employment to the poor, which might easily be done if the public works began at once. Even on the part of the provincial officer of the board, there appears to be a degree of neglect which, under present circumstances, is most reprehensible. At the last two meetings of the Ballydangan (Roscommon) Relief Committee, the civil engineer did not attend,

though his presence was indispensable to enable the committee to carry out its objects. Surely, at such a crisis, scarcely any palliation can be offered for such conduct. Only one road has yet been opened in this district."-Ballinasloe Advertiser.

What now is to be done to alleviate this dreadful state of things? The late Government, finding it had miscalculated the extent of the evil, or its own means, came forward, and confessed that it could do no more,-that "Government had done its utmost!" This is what they said in excuse for doing nothing efficient while in power. It is, however, only fair to state, that Sir Robert was occupied with the difficulties of the Corn Bill, and that he frankly announced from the first, what was greatly discredited in England, the failure of the potato crop. We could wish he had accompanied his Corn Bill with a Remedial Bill for the present Irish distress. We think this would have been less embarrassing to him, and sooner done with, than the numerous inquiries and details into which Government entered without any useful result. Conviction of the real facts, however, forced themselves on the mind of the Premier, and he may literally be said to have echoed the claims of Mr. O'Connell. The question of what should be done for Ireland was well opened by the letter of Lord William_Fitzgerald. Earl Grey has spoken well upon it, so has Lord Lincoln; so has Mr. Poulet Scrope, and several others; but with Sir Robert we must at present leave it, for he has certainly placed the whole question in a more glaring light than the new Premier appears able to read at present without "shading his eyes."

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ART. IX.-1. Report presented to the Shareholders of the Great Luxembourg Company. 14th July, 1846.

2. Commercial Statistics. By John Macgregor. In 3 vols. 1844.

BEFORE We enter on the consideration of the Overland Passage from India, which we trust to see effected by Englishmen, by whom alone it can be fully realized throughout, we shall take a view of the country through which it must pass in its last transit to ourselves. Here, consequently, impediments must be first overcome, and English enterprise deal with them here in initio. It will be of small use to attempt to work upward from Trieste, unless we are fully prepared to show that the parties in a northward direction are eminently calculated to take the initiation in that direction. Every one who is acquainted with the miserable character of foreign railways of single lines, must be fully aware that these are not equal to the support of a highly extensive traffic. English enterprise and capital must cover the whole extent from Ostend to Trieste, or to Constantinople if requisite. England is now the centre to which the world-population directs itself; why should she not enjoy the profit of conveying this mass to her coasts, and of determining movement constantly in her own direction? We think she must and ought, and differ widely in sentiment from those persons who conceive that English money is thrown away if embarked on foreign speculation. Provided our money brings, by superior facility of conveyance, the tide of commerce in our direction, the nation gains by such transmission. And, further, England's position is this: Every farthing of money that the capitalists embark in foreign enterprise, while it confers a benefit on the countries in which it is consumed which they could not furnish to themselves, not only comes back, but comes back with hundredfold augmentation to the capital expended by the mother-country. Since, for example, if England lay railways through Belgium on a fifty or ninety-years' lease, the principal is not only rapidly turned, but an interest with it that augments the enormous wealth of this country. The funds give no per centage equal to that which