The following was received from the Bishop of Elphin:—

"This evening's post has brought me your esteemed favour of yesterday, and I am glad you have given me the opportunity of expressing my opinion of the Mansion House Committee, over which you preside. In Ireland it need not be observed that its members are men of respectable position, high character, and considerable influence. They hold strong and widely-diverging opinions in religion and politics; yet they have never, that I know or have heard, manifested the slightest religious or political bias in their discussions, or the Lord Mayor of Dublin's decisions as a Committee. Their bond of union, and the sole object for which they are associated, appears unmistakably to be the relief and prevention of distress amongst our poor people; and considering the fearful, bewildering crisis with which your Committee has to deal, and the countless claims it has to weigh and decide, on information often unavoidably incomplete, it has, in my humble opinion, dispensed the funds entrusted to it with as much prudence and efficiency as could be expected from any Central Committee, no matter how constituted. I have had many opportunities for forming the opinion I here express—and to express it, under the circumstances that call for it, is to me a duty of justice as well as of gratitude. It would be a public calamity if your Committee were allowed to be robbed of the confidence it has hitherto so justly enjoyed.