From The Cork Examiner, 29 January 1878 - AMONGST the measures to be introduced to the House of Commons by the Irish Parliamentary party was a bill of Mr. M'CARTHY DOWNING'S on the subject of the deportation of Irish paupers from England and Scotland. The Home Rule members have been on the whole remarkably fortunate, as will be seen by a spiteful article on the point which we give elsewhere, but this case was an unlucky exception. Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSY balloted for a day for Mr. DOWNING'S bill, but failed to obtain it. Mr. DOWNING resolved then to try a resolution, but in two ballots he has been again unfortunate. It is, however, his intention to persevere. Meantime he has placed on the paper a notice of motion for a continuation of a former return he had obtained of the numbers banished from England and Scotland in punishment of their Irish birth. This return will be had. The Local Government Board in England have assented to its being made, and the formal adoption of the motion only awaits the result of a communication of the Chief Secretary to the Irish Local Government Board, who can supplement the information that is to be given by the English department. Mr. DOWNING'S hands cannot fail to be strengthened by some of the cases which the new returns will include. They will show that the insensibility of English and Scotch poor law officials to the sufferings of Irish paupers has not been much lessened, and that the firm grip of law is necessary to bind them to the dictates of humanity. Different parts of Ireland from time to time have their story of the brutality which is shewn towards our wretched country people when poverty compels them to the dire necessity of asking English or Scotch alms. Our own workhouse has some recent stories of the kind to tell. Considerable sensation was made by a scandalous deportation from Nottingham to Limerick. Ireland was horrified by the details of the suicide of the unhappy pauper KENNY, the miseries of whose enforced voyage led him to self-destruction in the North Dublin Union. The Kilkenny Moderator mentions the case of an imbecile girl received at Thomastown Workhouse from Glasgow, where she had been three years resident with her mother, after whose death, however, she had to seek workhouse relief. Our Kilkenny contemporary illustrates the carelessness and ignorance which make the enforcement of the law in the fact that the girl's native place was Dungannon in the county of Tyrone, so that they might as properly have sent her to Kerry as to Kilkenny. Their action, however, is characteristic. It is natural that ignorance should be found amongst the officials who wield this abominable and degrading law as cruelty. We hope, however, that the exertions of our County Member may suffice to take out of their hands a power which ought never to have been entrusted to them, which is not only objectionable in itself, but is used in a manner equally illegal and heartless. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Dennis Ahern | Ireland Newspaper Abstracts Acton, Massachusetts | http://www.IrelandOldNews.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -