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CHAPTER I....continued
The majority of those who now constitute the strength of the Catholic element in Halifax came without funds or friends, some literally without a shilling in their pocket; but with honesty, intelligence, and a determination to work. From the humblest occupations, natural to their first efforts in a strange place, many of the Irish in Halifax have risen to wealth and influence. Industry and good conduct--these their all, their sword and buckler, their wand of magic power. And as they rose in the world they carried with them the respect of the community by whom the successful architect of his own position is justly estimated at a higher value than the fortunate inheritors of the wealth of those who went before them.
It may perhaps be too much to assert that the transplanting of the Irishman from his own soil to a new country and a healthier atmosphere has been of unmixed benefit to him in every sense; but in one respect his improvement is unquestionable--he is above that shamefaced snobbishness which he too often displays at home. It is not every one in the old country who will make the story of his own elevation in life a matter of honest pride. In Halifax--in America--it is different. From several of my countrymen, of different degrees of prosperity and social standing, I have heard the history of their early struggles and ultimate success. Some of these had not the advantage of an early education, and were self-made and self-taught; but they were men of great sagacity and fine natural talent, whom cultivation would have well fitted for the administration of public affairs. One of these gave as his reason for not accepting an office which had been placed at his disposal, his own consciousness of the want of early training, which was unavoidable in his case, owing to the circumstances of Ireland at the time of his leaving it; and yet he dealt with the question of the hour--the proposed Confederation of the British Colonies--with a breadth of thought and a mastery of detail that proved the very fitness which he modestly repudiated.
'Such a man is worth 5,0001.,' 'this man has 10,000l.,' 'that man is worth 20,000l.,' `this other man is worth 50,000l. if he is worth a penny,' has been repeatedly said to me of Irishmen who made no show whatever; but almost invariably one important statement was added: `he is a steady, prudent man,' 'he is a good, worthy man,' or, 'there is not a better conducted man in the province.' The golden rule of success in life was thus frequently expressed; 'To get on here, a man must be industrious and well-conducted; with industry and good conduct any man, no matter what he is, or what he has, or how he begins, can get on here; but not without these essentials. But the man who drinks, bid him remain at home--he won't do here.' Spoken in Nova Scotia, as the experience of people of all ranks, classes, and occupations, it is equally applicable to every province of British America, and every State in the Union. Industry, sobriety, good conduct--these, under favourable circumstances, raise the humblest to the level of the great; and favourable circumstances abound in America.
A visit to two institutions of very different character impressed me with a still stronger conviction of the prosperity of Halifax. These institutions, its Poor's Asylum and its Schools.
The number in the Poor's Asylum, according to the record in the book, was 354. This was the gross number; but the number belonging to the city was only 120, which was small for a population of 34,000. The rest had been sent in from various places in the province--some from distances varying from 50 even to 200 miles. Strictly speaking, there was not an able-bodied male pauper in the establishment: those who were there were the aged, the infirm, the sick, the helpless, or those waifs and strays that are stranded on the shore of life, the victims of their folly and infatuation. Deducting the children, 64 in number, the insane or idiotic, about 50 in all, and the sick, infirm, and aged, who were the majority, the remaining were but few. As the Master said, there was not in the house a man who could perform a day's work.
What to do with our workhouse children--how to deal with those who are brought up in such institutions--is one of the most formidable difficulties with which the administrators of the Poor-law in Ireland have to deal. There is no difficulty in Halifax on that score; and if throughout America the children of the poor were treated in one essential respect in the same spirit of fairness, there would be fewer occasions for bitterness than unhappily exist in some of the Northern States. The children being carefully taught, the boys are apprenticed out as early as the age of twelve or thirteen, and are indentured till twenty-one, due precaution being had not only as to the means and character of the master, but for the protection of the religious faith of the child; the latter being secured by binding the Catholic child to a Catholic master, and the Protestant child to a Protestant master--a course which commends itself to every fair and impartial mind. The girls are apprenticed till the age of eighteen. By the conditions of the indenture, the child is to be suitably educated, and to be provided with a Sunday suit, at the expense of the master or mistress. But with very few exceptions, the children, boys and girls, become incorporated with the family, of which, almost from the first, they are looked upon and treated as members.
Of the entire number of inmates in this Halifax institution, about two-thirds are Irish; and according to the united testimony of the secretary and two gentlemen of local eminence, the greater number of them owed their social ruin to the one fruitful cause of evil to the Irish race--that which tracks them across the ocean, and follows them in every circumstance and condition of life--that which mars their virtues and magnifies their failings--that which is in reality the only enemy they have occasion to dread, for it is the most insidious, the most seductive, and the most fatal of all--drink. Remarking on the fact mentioned, the gentleman by whom I was accompanied, a man of long and varied experience, said:--'All can do well here if they only abstain from drink, or if they will drink in moderation; but drink is the ruin of men here, just as in the old country. No matter how a man starts, though without a cent in his pocket, he can make money here, provided he is well-conducted, and does not drink.' Happily, however, the number of the victims was but small.
My visits to the Catholic schools, which, as is the rule throughout America, are conducted by members of religious communities, were attended with much interest, and left upon my mind the deepest impression, not so much of the excellence of the teaching, for of that I had no doubt whatever, but of the substantial prosperity of the town, and the solid comfort enjoyed by the least wealthy portion of its inhabitants--its working population. I went through the schools conducted by the Christian Brothers, whose system of teaching and discipline is in all respects identical with that so well known in those cities of the old country which are blessed by their presence; my desire being merely to see the children, how they looked, and in what manner they were clad. Nor was my surprise less great than agreeable at the spectacle which I beheld. It was heightened by the force of contrast; as but a few days before I left Ireland I had, with others, accompanied certain distinguished Englishmen to the schools of the Christian Brothers of my own city, and the remembrance of what I there witnessed was strong and vivid. There--in Cork--there was much to gratify, much even to astonish, but there was also too much to sadden and depress. The boys bright, quick, intelligent, exhibiting in every department extraordinary proficiency, to such a degree indeed as to excite the openly-expressed amazement of the strangers; but too many of them exhibited the unmistakable evidence of intense poverty, not only in their scanty raiment but in their pale and anxious faces. What a contrast to this--in this one respect only--was presented by the schools of the Brothers in Halifax! Not a single sign or indication of poverty, not a trace of want, not a tattered coat or trowsers, not a rent, not a patch--on the contrary, every boy, whatever his age, neatly and comfortably clad, and having the appearance of robust health. Indeed such was their appearance that, had I not been repeatedly assured they were the children of working men, I should have taken them as belonging to the middle class. Bright, intelligent, bold-eyed, happy-looking boys, the right stuff for the future citizens of a free country and a progressive community.
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