Mr Bruce:
The expenses, in his mind, were grossly exorbitant […] and he thought this an enormous charge, and he hoped this was quite sufficient observation on that head.
Chairman:
What do you allude to?
Mr Bruce:
To salaries paid to agents, inspectors, parcel clerks, bell-ringers and the like, and I don’t know what oyu want with all these people; you get a person to ring a bell twice a day, and this, with others, I think a regular system of patronage.
An exchange at the half-yearly meeting of the Grand Canal Company on 2 November 1844, reported in the Freeman’s Journal of 4 November 1844.
Irish waterways history 
If ringing that bell kept some family out of a workhouse or off a coffin ship, then fair play to the GCC!
As the ringer was in Dublin, he would have travelled by steamer to Liverpool if he wanted to emigrate, and the steamers were seaworthy. bjg