§ Mr. F. French, seeing the right hon. Secretary of State for Ireland in his place, wished to ask him several questions relative to the Irish Poor Law. In the first place, he was desirous to know if the Government had been informed that the want of proper sewerage in the Cavan workhouse had produced a malignant fever, by an attack of which the matron and porter of that workhouse had been carried off; whether the master of the workhouse had run away; and also if it were true that the house was now without its proper officers? In the second place, he wished to know if the poor rate in the Ballinasloe Union was levied this year as it had been last year, namely, by aid of military force? He was anxious also to be informed if it were true that the Board of Guardians of the Listowel Union had applied recently to the Government for the aid of an armed force, without which they said it was impossible to collect the poor rates in that Union? In the next place, he wished to ask if it were true that a poor-rate collector had been lately murdered in the county Roscommon; and lastly, he would ask whether the Government were about to abandon the existing Irish Poor Law, and to give to that country, as they were about to give to Scotland, a Poor Law suited to the wants and the circumstances of the people?
§ Sir T. Fremantlesaid, it was true that the matron and the porter of the Cavan workhouse had been attacked with malignant fever, but there was no reason to conclude, or even to suppose, that this attack of fever had arisen from want of proper sewerage in the workhouse. The Commissioners had not received any intelligence to the effect that the master of the Cavan workhouse had resigned, or that he had run away, as the hon. Gentleman 685 termed it. However, such an event might take place, as the Commissioners had threatened his dismissal for irregularity in his conduct. With respect to the next question, he was able to state that at an earlier period of the year, an armed force was employed in the Ballinasloe Union for the purpose of protecting the collector of poor rates, who had been threatened with violence. The collector was accompanied by police in consequence, but no disturbance had taken place; with respect to the Listowel Union, he had no knowledge of the proceedings to which the hon. Member referred as taking place in the Listowel Union; and he could also add that he had heard nothing of the loss of a poor-rate collector's life in the county of Roscommon. He was happy to state that the poor rates had been collected in Ireland during the last year with less opposition than had been exhibited during any former year, and he believed that the opposition was confined solely to a few parishes in the West of Ireland.