444: RE‘MARKS ON EhIlGRATION.

the absence of reflection, and the attendant disregard of future consequences, as to the means of supporting a family, at about the same age that the young men of England and Scotland are leaving school, and their parents anxiously considering what occupation they are to follow, or what trade they are to learn by an apprenticeship of five or seven years, the Irish pea- santry link into premature marriages, and thereby multiply the endless evils of poverty.

In countries like America, where labour is dear, and the population scanty in proportion to the vast extent of land, early marriages are not by any means attended with the same evils as in Ireland, where the population is superabundant, in as much as there is not sufficient employment, for the inhabitants. A great proportion of the pauperism that exists in Great Britain, is caused by the seemingly endless influx of Irish beggars. Were there no mendicants but those bornvriwithin the parishes of England and Scotland, our feelings would not be harrowed by the famished, half—naked, unfortunate beings that assail us in every town, vill age, and along every road in both countries.916

4* We may every day, at the pier-heads of Liverpool, at Glasgow, and other places, witness the landing of hundreds of ragged, squa- lid objects, (men, women, and children,) from Ireland. These people come over under the pretence of looking for employment, and proceed begging on their way through the country. Before leaving Ireland, they are told it is physically impossible that they can be so miserable in England or in Scotland, as in their own country; that they can beg from one place to another; that if they are eventually sent back by the parishes, they will be provided for ; and that they can, in spite of all the vigilance of overseers and police