10.  The first three classes to get gratuitous relief, but the fourth to be relieved by the sale of food of a cheap description:  and it was specially laid down that there were to be “no gratuitous supplies of food to them.”  “This,” say the Instructions, “is to be a fixed rule.”  Yet it was afterwards modified with regard to class 4:  the clause saying “they were to be relieved by the sale of food of a cheap description” did not, it would seem, mean that such food was to be sold under its value.  This was represented as a hardship, and on the 11th of May the Relief Commissioners ruled, that with regard to the price of food to class 4, “any food cooked in a boiler might be sold under first cost.”

12.  Persons receiving wages, or refusing hire, to be excluded from gratuitous relief.

15.  To entitle holders of land to gratuitous relief, it should be absolutely required of them to proceed with the cultivation of their land.

The relief lists were to be revised every fortnight; the food best suited to each district, and the most easily obtained there, to be at once taken into consideration.

As to rations, it was considered that the most nourishing and economical food was soup made after some of the approved receipts, with a portion of bread, meal, or biscuit.

The 26th rule fixed the quantity and quality of a ration.

It was to consist of

1-1/2 lbs. of bread; or 1 lb. of biscuit; or 1 lb. of meal or flour of any grain; or 1 quart of soup thickened with a portion of meal, according to the known receipts, and one quarter ration of bread, biscuit or meal, in addition.

Persons above nine years of age to have one full ration; those under that age half a ration.

These rules were promulgated from the Relief Commission Office, in Dublin Castle, on the 8th of March.

A difficulty having arisen as to what could be strictly considered “soup,” the following definition of it was issued by the Relief Commissioners to the Inspecting officers of each Union.

“Sir, As the term ‘Soup’ in the Instructions seems to have created an impression with many parties, that only the liquid ordinarily so called is meant, and that meat must necessarily form an ingredient, the Relief Commissioners beg that the general term ‘soup,’ in their Instructions, may be understood to include any food cooked in a boiler, and distributed in a liquid state, thick or thin, and whether composed of meat, fish, vegetables, grain or meal.”

The Commissioners published their first report on the 10th of March, eleven days after the Relief Act came into force; an exceedingly short time for them in which to have done anything worth reporting; but this is explained by the fact, that they and their officers had been set to work a considerable time before the Relief Act had become law; the Government assuming that it would meet with no real opposition in its passage through Parliament.