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CHAPTER XIII....concluded
It may be questioned if in any part of the Union the Irish of the working classes are better off in all respects than they are in San Francisco. The immense and continuous employment, as well as the liberal rate of remuneration, have had much to do with this; but to the thrifty habits and admirable conduct of the Irish is the happy result equally attributable. Though wages of all kinds are liberal at present, and employment is constantly to be obtained for the greater portion of the year, still the rate of remuneration is not equal to what it was when the work to be done was more pressing, the hands to do it were fewer, and the mines attracted almost universal attention. From 1849 to 1853 skilled labour ranged from 6 to 10 dollars a day, while unskilled labour commanded from 3 to 5 dollars a day. Washing was then as high as 6 dollars per dozen! Women in domestic employment were paid at from 50 to 70 dollars a month. From wages such as these it was not difficult for an industrious and economical person to save money. Many did so, and bought lots on the outskirts of the town, which soon extended in every direction, and so enhanced the value of the property thus honourably obtained, as to render its owners rich without any further exertion on their part. I am happy to know of many, many instances of such successful thrift and forethought on the part of Irishmen in every part of the United States, and also in the British Provinces.
Mechanics now earn from 4 to 5 dollars, while labourers receive from 2 to 3 dollars a day. This, taking the present value of the dollar, would be, on an average, 14s. 6d. a day for the mechanic, and 8s. a day for the labourer. Being so amply remunerated, almost every working-man, whether mechanic, labourer, or drayman, owns the house in which he lives, and the lot on which it stands. Different indeed from the state of things in New York, where the well-paid mechanic, who but rarely owns the house in which he lives, has to pay 100 or 120 dollars a year for two or three rooms in a tenement house. Women servants receive from 20 to 40 dollars a month, according to their occupation or proficiency, or the class of people in whose houses they reside.
If any further proof were required of the condition of the Irish in San Francisco, it is to be had in the facts connected with the Hibernian Savings' Bank and Loan Society, now nearly completing its eighth year of usefulness. The deposits in this bank to January 21, 1867, were 5,241,000 dollars. I perceive by the returns for 1866 that the depositors receive interest at the rate of eleven per cent., and that the earnings that year amounted to 244,000 dols. But it is more important to learn that seven-eighths of the depositors are Irish, and that of the amount deposited by the Irish fully three-fourths belong to the working classes, including mechanics, labourers, and girls in various employments.
Of the Irish girls in America I have spoken elsewhere; but any notice of the race in San Francisco, in which special mention of the Irish girls of that city was not made, would be most incomplete. They form a considerable and valuable portion of its population, and are deservedly esteemed by all classes of its citizens. They are industrious, intelligent, faithful, generous, high-spirited, and intensely devoted to their religion, of which they are the proudest ornaments and best examples. So justly esteemed are these Irish girls for purity and honour, that some 2,000 of them have been well married--fully half of that number to men of substance and good position. It may be remarked that a considerable number of them had been tenderly reared at home, where they received a fair education; but, driven by circumstances to emigrate, they were of necessity obliged to accept even the humblest situations in a foreign land. They soon, however, rose above the lowly condition which they dignified by their intelligence and worth, and found in an honourable marriage ample compensation for all their former trials.
It is estimated that seventy-five per cent, of the Irish girls in domestic employment in San Francisco can read fairly, while more than fifty per cent. can both write and read well. The rate of wages for domestic employment ranges from 20 to 40 dollars a month. The average would come to 60l. a year. Out of this income they save a certain portion, indulge their Celtic love of finery, gratify their charitable and religious instincts by generous contributions to church, to convent, to orphanage, and to asylum; and the balance is devoted to the twofold purpose, with them almost equally sacred--to assist their parents or aged relatives in the old country, or bring out a brother or a sister to their adopted home. It is calculated by those who have every means of ascertaining the fact, that the Irish girls employed in San Francisco annually remit to Ireland, for the purposes stated, the sum of 270,000 dollars! What eulogium can equal the mere mention of this fact?
Whatever religious indifferentism there may be in other parts of America, there is none in San Francisco among its Irish Catholic population. In their hard struggle for the good things of this life they did not forget their interests in the next; and such was the liberality with which they co-operated with the zeal of their pastors, that, in little more than a dozen years after the new city began to rise above the huts and shanties that once occupied its site, the Church property, including buildings and real estate, was valued at 2,010,000 dollars. This includes the cathedral and five other churches, convents, asylums, and hospitals. Giving Catholics of other nationalities full credit for their liberality, and allowing for the generous assistance afforded by those of different denominations, it is admitted that three-fourths of what has been done for the Church in the city and county of San Francisco has been done by the Irish. In fact, without them little could have been done; but with them everything was possible. It is superfluous to state that the Irish women of San Francisco are famous for their piety and zeal for religion--that, indeed, is characteristic of the race throughout America; but it has been particularly remarked by those who have had opportunities of observation in many of the States, that in few places, if in any, did they notice a greater number of men, in the prime of life, and actively engaged in the pursuits of business, so constant in the performance of their religious duties, as penitents in the confessional, and communicants at the altar, than in this noble city. With every charitable and benevolent undertaking men of this class are instinctively identified, either as leaders and promoters, or as zealous and liberal supporters; and should they shrink from a position too prominent for their modesty, they more than compensate for their sensitiveness by the abundance of their generosity.
As an evidence of the progress and present position of the Irish in San Francisco, a few significant items might be quoted from the record of the Assessor of Taxes; but it is sufficient to state that, with the exception of four others, not Irish, six Irishmen are the highest rated of its citizens. One fact, however, renders further details unnecessary--namely, that while the Irish constitute one-fourth of the population of San Francisco, or 30,000 out of 120,000, they are considered to possess one-fourth of the entire property of the city, or 20,000,000 out of 80,000,000 of dollars. And yet of every 100 Irish who came to San Francisco, as to California generally, 75 were either poor or scantily provided with means. Few, indeed, brought any money capital with them, but they had energy, industry, with capacity for all kinds of work; and though they came from a country in which enterprise had little existence, and industry not at all times a fair field or a right reward, these men and women of Irish race soon caught the spirit of the American--the right spirit for a new country, the genuine 'Go-ahead'--that which always looks forward and never looks back.
With the mention of a single case--of an Irishman who was certainly one of the seventy-five per cent, who brought with them to the land of gold but little of the world's goods--I may usefully conclude this sketch of the Irish in California. It may be given in the words of my informant, a gentleman who left Ireland for America in 1849. He says: 'There is one circumstance in connection with my coming to America that has always, and will always, give me great pleasure. I mention it with a view to enable you to judge of what a poor Irishman can accomplish in this country with a fair field before him. About the time I was making up my mind to come to California, I was then engaged in building some public works in the town of Sligo. I had then in my employment, and for a short time before, a confidential labouring man. At that time he had a wife and six children in the poor-house in Tullamore, in the King's County, to which he belonged, having been dispossessed of a small piece of land in that neighbourhood. When I mentioned to him that I was going to California, he fell on his knees and implored me to take him with me. I was at first thunderstruck at the idea of his willingness to leave his family, and go to so distant a country, and I so expressed myself to him. But he answered me--"If I remain here, I lose my employment, and I, too, must go into the poor-house, and then all hope is over." I felt too keenly the truth of his reply. I could make no further objection, and I told him I would take him with me. In a year after his arrival in this country he sent home money, took his family out of the work-house, and sent his children to school. They are all now here, his daughters well married, his sons in good situations, and the old couple, with two of their younger children, born in California, living in a comfortable way on a good farm, from which no bailiff can eject them. The simple statement of the history of this family speaks volumes, in my mind, of what the Irish can do in America.'
In this language speaks another Irishman, a Californian resident of long standing, whose name is held in merited respect by all who know him: 'Thus, in general with but a poor beginning, in a manner friendless, strangers in a strange land, have our people struggled and fought, and been victorious. Their bones will lie far away from the hallowed dust of their kindred; yet every mountain, hillside, and valley in this favoured land will give evidence to posterity of their toil, enterprise, and success. Their footprints, marking the genius and traditions of their race, their love and veneration of the old faith, and the old country from which they were such unwilling exiles, shall endure in the land for ever.'
As this sheet was going through the press, my attention was attracted by an article in the Monitor of San Francisco, from which I quote the concluding passage, written, as I believe, in the right spirit:--
It is our interest to have as many of our countrymen here as possible; and, moreover, we honestly believe no other country holds out such advantages for their coming. They have not the prejudices of race or religious bigotry which exist in some parts of the East to contend with; unskilled labour is more respected here than there, and finally, the natural resources of the country are greater, and the population less dense than in any of the Atlantic States. Why cannot the Irishmen of this city form a society for diffusing a knowledge of California's resources among our countrymen, and communicating with employers throughout the State, for securing immediate employment on their arrival? We almost feel a scruple about encouraging emigiation from poor depopulated Ireland, where the fortunes of our race have yet to be retrieved; but in England and Scotland there are nearly a million of Irishmen from whose ranks we could easily obtain an annual immigration of many thousands by a system such as that we have just proposed. We know by experience the state of feeling existing among our countrymen in Europe, and we believe that by a plan such as we have described, an immense Irish population could be drawn here, to both their own and our advantage. The Irish of California are wealthy and liberal, and surely such a society as the one we have proposed could be easily started among them. We hope our suggestions may turn the attention of some of them to the practical development of Irish immigration from England and the Eastern cities.
END OF CHAPTER XIII.
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