The Irish Emigrant in New York
Dec 2 1864
The special correspondant of the ‘Daily News’ in New York in his last communication deals principally with the alledged outrages committedon emigrants arriving in that city 출장마사지
While he does not deny such outrages are committed,he does say that thenumber of them is an exceedingly small proportion to the totalnumber of arrivals and that it is absurd to suppose they will have anysensible effect on emigration:-
“The danger of shipwreck is a much more formidable one than the chanceof being kidnapped in New York, and yet the chance of being drowned at sea will never induce the mass of Irishmen to starve and wear ragsat home when they can get good food and clothes here.
I admit that a laborer with a family,even if he recieves two dollars a day and his board, is still,even here,poor, and has to suffer, but of wantsuch as he has to endure in the Old World he runs no risk;constant employment he is sure of, and his children are almost certain,if they behave tolerably well, to rise in the social scale. 출장마사지
It is this which,after all, lends to America one of the greatest charmsin the eyes of the poor emigrants.
Men and women are not a drug in this market, everything is possible here to industry and intelligence.
Nothing,therefore,that you can say of the defects of the government willever persuade the poorest hod-carrier who lies down in a New York tenementhouse that he, or ‘any won belongin to him’ would bet better off in a Connaught cabin, on three meals of potatoes a day,children growing upin an ancient proffession of beggars,and the poor house looming up onhis horizon as a shelter for his old age.
He sees men in prominent positions at the bar, on the bench,thrivingmerchants,shopkeepers and farmers on all sides,officers high in therank of the army,whose fathers he is told came from Germany or Irelandas poor as he. 출장마사지
He walks up 5th Avenue and sees a score of mansions owned by men who arewell known to have laboured in early life with their hands, and probablythinks that if he only gave up the whiskey’bad luck to it’,he mightdo as well himself.So you can’t get him to wish himself back,you can’tprevent him writing to his friends that they had better come too, andthey will come,though the “Times” and “Freemans journal” warned themever so much of the horrors that await them on this side.
It is wonderful how easy it seems in London for an Irishman to livecalmly in Tipperary for a shilling a day,and wonderful what an effectAmerican horrors,more than all the others, are supposed to be likely tohave on an Irish imagination.A simple flogging in the English Army is a spectacle far more shockingto the heroes than all the ‘drugging’ and gagging put together thathas been done by Federal recruiting agents since the war began.
Thousands of Irish Soldiers have had their backs publicly torn with thecat within the last 50 years,and the Irish press has published hundredsof accounts of it, and denunciations of it, and yet it is not generallysupposed that this has prevented any large number of Irishmen fromenlisting for a ‘shilling a day’ minus ‘stoppages’.
The sound advice to give Irishmen is not to stop at hime in misery, but tocome out here if they can, and when they get here to listen to the adviceof the COMMISSIONERS OF EMIGRATION, who take charge of them on their arrival, and act upon it, and not to go wandering through the streets,drinking with the first man they meet.Nobody need fall into the hands ofthe recruiting sharks who is possessed of the ordinary amount of common sense and discretion. 출장마사지
There is no law imposing any conscription or public service upon them ofany description, and the demand for labour is enormous and daily increasing.
Every possible precaution is taken by the commissioners of Emigration toprotect new arrivals.No ‘touter’ or ‘loafer’ or bounty broker is allowed to enter the buildings atCastle Garden.On arrival of a shipload of emigrants they are addressed by the agents ofthe board in the building, and carefully informed of their legal rightsand privilages,and advice and information are freely supplied with regardto all routes and fares. 출장마사지
But that enlistment is encouraged by the officials I think there isno doubt.Large placards are posted up round the building stating theamount of bounty paid to recruits entering the army and navy,and if anyone wants to enlist he gets all reasonable aid.But there is complete protection for every man who chooses to availhimself against all violence and outrage.
taken from the Belfast Gazette.[Port Fairy – Australia]Dec 2 1864.