To the People of Ireland.
Sept. 10, I860
FELLOW COUNTRYMEN. — I arrived on last Tuesday in
this beautiful town of about thirteen Thousand inhabitants. It is
distant from New York about three hundred miles, and it is surrounded by
one of the most flourishing agricultural districts in the entire Union.
The line of railroad from Rochester to this place (about eighty miles)
lies through rich pastures, luxuriant meadow-land, and through endless
corn fields; interspersed here and there with orchards, gardens, and the
varied fruit productions of the country.
I passed several neat,
prosperous towns of, perhaps, two, three, or four thousand population,
as the case may be; and the streets, the houses, and the people all
bearing unmistakable testimony to the comforts and independence of the
districts. Some lakes, too, appeared along the road, proving a fact
already noticed by me namely, that the loose sand or the baked sand
(sandstone.) east of the Alleganies, (Alleghenies) receiving from the
water sheds of these mountains their multitudinous floods of rain,
absorb and sift and nitrate the water, till in some favourable natural
sunk basins, these floods burst from their subterranean channels, and
present in one deep, wide flooded territory the lake development.
I can do nothing in the States for some months to come
from the present time till about the middle of November, nothing will be
thought of, spoken of, written, or done in the entire Union except the
all-absorbing topic and ubiquitous preparations for the election of the
American President. The universal press, the universal platform, and the
universal population—men, women, and children—are all engaged, day and
night, in this sleepless hum, unceasing work of the Republican election.
Torchlight processions, every man carrying, at 10 o'clock at night, a
torch on the top of a pole, parade the streets; bands of exquisite
German music accompany about every two or three hundred of the
processionists; the most perfect order is observed on the line of march,
moving in double or single lines according to their numbers; and the
whole mass, perhaps of eight or ten thousand men, thus walking in these
parallel lines of waving nodding flambeaus; keeping a measured military
tramp, and going in perfect silence, only broken by the inspiriting
marshal airs, is without doubt, one of the most thrilling, and
appalling, and heart moving, and soul-stirring and .stupendously
suggestive scenes, and spectacles which could be presented to the
imagination and eye of a stranger.
Not a shout was raised through the streets} the cheers
are reserved for the finale of the procession. Not a broken head or a
black eye have I heard of as yet from these blazing patriotic meetings:
these silent musical assemblages. It is all law—all order—all
temperance, as far as 1 have yet learned; and every citizen, every
voter, who joins in these processions in order to elect the head of the
Constitution, to nominate the essential main spring of the
administration, exhibits, in hit own bearing and conduct, the same
legal, sober, temperate, constitutional feeling which he hopes to see
realized on a large scale, and concentrated in by the nation's free
choice.
It is surprising how ardently men support the constitution by
which they are impartially protected; how honestly they observe the laws
which bring security and liberty to their own fire-sides, and how
affectionately they revere the supreme head, which wields power and
dispenses favours for the universal public good. What a contrast, 80 far
as I have observed it, between this country and the unhappy Nation where
the laws are conceived in a spirit of religious persecution, where they
are framed in penal exclusion—and where they are administered to the
weak in ferocious instinct and in sanguinary malice. Oh! Lord, what a
fate! What a wretched race! What bleeding slavery! I have met in this
town an unusually large number of Irish, proportionably to the American
population of the place.
And again, I do not remember to have seen anywhere else
in this country, so many persons from the immediate neighbourhood where
I was born. The Queen's county, the county Carlow, and the county
Kildare, have sent hundreds of emigrants to this town and county. The
town of Carlow and of Castledermot, the villages of Levitstowh, of
Magenny and Killeen, have shipped to Auburn a numerous congregation of
good edifying Catholics; and moreover, they are all independent in the
world some few of them with hundreds of dollars saved; and one of them
with at least ten thousand dollars! The poor fellows never left me, I
may say, day or night, since I came here. I asked them of they wished
that I should send home their compliments and love to their friends; and
they drew up the following list of names, which I transcribe in my
present letter:
COUNTY KILDARE Daniel Dowling, James Lawler,
Thomas Timens, James Farrel, John McDonnell, James McDonald, Michael
Kelly, Castlerow. Michael Murray, Maruice Murphy, Edward Murphy, James,
Murphy, Patrick Neal, Davidstown. James Wall, Patrick Murphy, Newton.
James Galvin, Kilkea. James Hennessey, Patrick Doyle, Levitstown.
Patrick Kinsella, Torrence Kinsella, Thomas Neal, John Neal, James
Casey, Patrick Casey, Kilkea.
COUNTY CARLOW Patrick Dunne, Laurence Dunne,
James Doyle, Dennis Doyle, Rathvilly.
Old men and women, young girls, young men and children
in fact, three generations came to me here, to see their countryman,
their townsman, or their county-man, asking me ten thousand questions
about home, and sending through this letter their Irish warm
remembrances and affections to their relatives in Ireland. If I put them
all down in print, the entire paper would be covered with their names.
The cause of this large number coming here from the same place has
arisen from the fact of the first emigrants being singularly successful;
and three whole parishes sailed in their lucky track. This reason is
further strengthened when one adds to this fact the additional
circumstances namely, the forced depopulation of several parts of the
county Kildare; and the wholesale extermination of the county Carlow.
I
could not, indeed resist my own desire and their wished of sending home
this package of Irish love to my own Leinster and my own parish; and
this too, as warmly as an American pen and ink can convey it, from my
ardent feelings. I cannot conclude this section of my letter without
devoting a little paragraph to sentiments, which will be well received
in Ireland. In my conversation with these respectable Irishmen—of
Auburn—I was delighted with the concurrent testimony, which they all
bore to the kindness of their American employers.
Several of these my
townsmen assured me that it was no uncommon favour for an American
gentleman or farmer, to send his horse and buggy with his Catholic
servants (helps) to the next town, in order to hear mass, when the
church or chapel would be at a distance from his residence; and others,
also, told me that in all positions, where they held office in
government situations, the superiors or heads of the departments evinced
a lively interest and friendly regard toward the Irish subalterna placed
under their control.
I think it right to make these observations to prove the
gratitude of my countrymen toward the Americans who treat them with
respect and kindness. And I shall say that if the true American
gentleman is equally proverbially kind, the true Irishman is equally
proverbially grateful I visited the State Prison of Auburn — There are
three State Prisons in the State of New York, namely Sing Sing, Auburn
and Clinton. There are in this one prison eight hundred and fifty
convicts their term of imprisonment varying from one year to a period of
their whole lives. They were principally young men from all nations,
which inhabit this country; that is Dutch, French, German, English,
Irish, and American.
On comparing the statistics of comparative crimes,
I was glad to see that the native-born Irish presented a favourable
comparison in the scale of prison crime. Considering their number in the
State, their crimes were under the general rate of the population This
was always my unproved opinion; and I was of course rejoiced to behold
the palpable reality of my former mere suppositious. The whole house,
that is, all the inmates, were working at numerous trades. The
experienced convict trade-man working with skill and expedition the
learned doing some part of the craft suited to his advancement—all were
employed. I noticed smiths, tailors, carpenters, coopers, cabinet
makers, agricultural machine-makers iron machinists, shoemakers, tool
makers, silver-platers, rug and carpet weavers, spinners, dyers painters
polishers and in fact, every description of tradesman known in America.
The various shops were lofty, well ventilated, clean, and planned and
built on the best modern scientific principles of light and air. Perfect
silence is maintained in all places and at all times, under severe
immediate punishment; and this regulation prevents the young,
comparatively innocent convict from learning the vice of the old
hardened culprit. In fact, they can only speak to the foreman of the
various trades and learn their trade. The poor Irish unfortunate fellows
could only give one long melancholy look at me as I passed.
If any man
execute his allotted work sooner than the foreman has appointed, the
convict can spend the remaining day in working for himself, and there
are instances where the wretched man has, after a term of five or seven
years, left the prison with one or two hundred dollars of his earnings
in his pocket. He re-enters society with a good trade, an improved
morality, a lesson of bitter experience, and is frequently an edifying
member of the human family. They eat meat twice a day. I saw their
dinner laid, and it is hard to say whether the wisdom or the humanity,
or the Christianity of the State law has the mastery in the admirable
discipline of these institutions.
- Your faithful, devoted countryman,
The above item can be found at Fulton
History
Transcribed by M Brennan April 2007 -
This article first appeared in
the Auburn Daily Union Sept. 10, I860
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