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CHAPTER XVI....concluded
An instance of the courage and energy which a mother's affection inspires may be given in the simple language of the poor woman who tells the artless story of her trials. The family were well off so long as the husband lived; but, when he died, the widow was compelled to accept a few pounds in lieu of valuable improvements which her husband had effected on two farms. Left with four children, and seeing her little fund diminishing day by day, and dreading that the poor-house would be their fate if she did not make some desperate effort to save them from such a calamity, she resolved to start for America herself, and there, by hard work, earn as much as would bring them out; and this determination she resolutely acted upon. Telling, in happier times, of her past trials, she used these words:--
`Oh, it would break the heart of a stone to see my four little children on the road, crying after me. My heart, sure enough, was near breaking with the sorrow that day. I ran as hard as I could away from them, for they cried and bawled; and it was "Oh, mammy, mammy! Oh, don't lave us! Oh come back, mammy, mammy!"--it went through and through me like a swoord. I had to look back, no matter though I tried not to do so, and I thought the seven senses would jump out of my two eyes. Poor little Patsey was then about four years old, and he ran after me, and cried "Mammy, mammy!" bigger than the rest. Sure my legs couldn't carry me any farther. He kissed me, and asked me to give him another penny: he didn't know where I was going to, or how long I'd be away, poor darling. This broke my heart entirely--I declare to you I don't know how I got away from them--it was like a bad drame to me. Well, we landed in Quebec, and I didn't know a sowl on God's earth, but a neighbour's boy of my own; and sure I thought that N---- (meaning a place nearly a thousand miles away) was the next ploughland to Quebec! They put me in a boat, and I felt as if it took us months to come to N------, for I was nearly perished with the could and the hunger. Sure the cattle passengers are treated better than the Christians. When I came to N----, I lived with a farmer. I worked hard all the day, and cried the most of the night. No wonder, for I was wanst full and comfortable at home, with my cows, and my pigs, and my horses, till my husband died--God rest his sowl! But, begonnies, in three months I was able to send home for the ouldest little girl--she was only nine years of age. When she came out, it warmed my poor heart; but she was a great care to me--I had to pay $4 a month for her boord, and that was hard enough. After a time I says to myself, "This will never do; paying $4 a month won't help me to bring out the rest of the children, poor things;" so I went and looked out for another place, and God sent me one.
I hired as a cook, and the little girl was taken to nurse the babby for her boord. I took great courage then entirely, and in half a year more I sent for another of the children. But I axed the priest--who was from my own place at home--to lend me the loan of the passages for the other two, and I would pay him, as sure as the Lord was in heaven. He did, sure enough, trust me with the money, and so he might; and may the Heavens be his bed for that same, amen! The three landed safe into my arms; then I felt I was a happy woman--and I cried that night at my prayers--but it was not like the scalding tears on the road, when I was laving them, and every step was like tearing the heart clane out of me: them tears, that night, did me good. The children were soon able to earn for themselves, and now, thanks be to the Lord! we are all comfortable and happy--no thanks to the villain of a landlord for that same; and the big boy, the Lord mark him to grace! is now able to read his fine books of Greek and Latin, and knows more than Murty Dermody, the schoolmaster in our parts. Oh, the health was a grand thing; that and the help of the Lord, glory be to his holy name! got me through; for, if I had a pain or an ache, the fear would come on me--and what would become of the children? 'Twas hard work enough; but sure the Lord fits the back to the burthen.'
`It would be quite impossible,' said a Sister of Mercy of New York, 'to relate half the instances of heroic sacrifices made for parents or other relatives by Irish girls that come to our knowledge.' Not the less heroic that they are entirely divested of dramatic interest or sensational attraction. Hannah Finn, a poor girl from the county of Limerick, was not just the person or the type a novelist or a poet would have chosen for story or for verse; and yet her life was one of the most complete self-sacrifice. At home she had toiled on a farm, and was therefore unaccustomed to house-work; yet, on her arrival in New York, whither she came in order that she might more effectually assist the old people whom she could not bring with her, she hired herself as 'cook's helper' in one of its hotels, preferring that situation to an easier place, that she might earn higher wages, and thus have more to send to her parents, to whose comfort she devoted her life. Twice a year she sent to them all the money she had saved, and always to the care of the parish priest. In the midst of her hard patient toil she received the sad tidings of her father being obliged 'to leave the land,' at which her heart was sorely troubled. But she only toiled the harder, and saved the more.
On the next occasion she was sending money, the Sister who wrote the letter for her wished to direct it to the place indicated by the girl's mother--the village to which the landless couple had removed; but Hannah persisted in sending it to the care of her former pastor, declaring that she would not send a penny of her money to anyone else. She continued to send her earnings regularly home as long as the old people lived; and soon after their death--her mission being now accomplished--she herself died of dropsy. To the charity of others she was indebted for assistance during her last illness, she having given everything to her parents, and reserved nothing for herself. The story of Hannah Finn, the poor county Limerick girl, the patient drudge in the New York kitchen, is that of many an Irish girl in America, to which they have emigrated rather with the purpose of helping those at home than of advancing their own fortunes.
When a passage is paid for by an Irish emigrant to bring out a member of the family, it is the custom, when sending the ticket, to accompany it with a few pounds to defray incidental expenses.
As a rule, those who are newly come send more and make greater sacrifices to bring out their relatives, or to assist them at home, than those who have been longer in the country: the wants of the family in the old country are more vividly present to the mind of the recent emigrant, and perhaps the affections are warmer and stronger than in after years, when time and distance, and the cares or distractions of a new existence, have insensibly dulled the passionate longings of yore. But thousands--many, many thousands--of Irish girls have devoted, do devote, and will devote their lives, and sacrifice every woman's hope, to the holiest, because the most unselfish, of all affections--that of family and kindred.
'I would say, from my own experience, as agent and otherwise,' remarked an agent in a New England State, 'that emigration will never cease with Irish families as long as any portion of them remain at each side of the Atlantic, and as long as those at this side find means to send for these they left behind--or so long as the Irish nature remains what it is; and I must say I can't see much change in it as yet.'
That the amount of money sent from America, including the British Provinces, to Ireland cannot be far from 24,000,000l. I feel assured. The Commissioners of Emigration, in their Report of 1863, return the amount as 12,642,000l. But they say it would not be unreasonable to estimate the amount, of which there are no returns, at half as much again as that of which there are returns. Taking this rather moderate estimate, the gross amount to the close of 1862 would reach 19,000,000l. That at least a million a year has been sent since then must be assumed. For last year--1866--the Commissioners put down the amount at less than half a million. But I am aware that, for that year, one bank or society in New York--the Irish Emigrant Society--remitted over 100,000l. to Ireland, and that some 130,000l. was sent by agents in Boston whom I could name. Here, then, is more than half the entire amount of which the Commissioners have any official knowledge. In many cities I personally know bankers or agents who sent amounts varying from 20,000l. to 30,000l.; and there is scarcely a place of any importance, or in which there is an Irish population, however inconsiderable, from which some contribution does not go to the old country, for one purpose or another. If, then, we add a million a year to the nineteen millions estimated by the Emigration Commissioners, we have, up to the 1st of January 1868, the amazing sum of 24,000,000l. sent by the Irish abroad to their relatives at home.* In the history of the world there is nothing to match this. It is a fact as glorious as stupendous, and may well stand against the sneers and calumnies of a century.
END OF CHAPTER XVI.
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NOTE:-
* Remittances from the Irish in Australia must be included in the gross result.