EMIGRANTS FROM BRITISH ISLES OUGHT NOT TO COME TO THE U. STATES.
Towards the close of my first communication, I stated
that I heartily wished not another emigrant from England,
Scotland or Ireland would ever come to the United States; I
have my reasons for so wishing and would now, with your
permission lay them before your readers. Emigrants from
England and Scotland I don't wish to see come -
1st. Because foreigners generally are subjected to much
unpleasantness by the opposition of the Know Nothing Party
who forgetting that "good things may come out of Nazareth",
abuse indiscriminately all emigrants, good and bad and loudly
declare through the press and on the platform, they want no
more of them to come to the country.
2dly. Because there is a good class as well as a bad
class of European emigrants, the latter unfortunately
predominates and is taken as exponential of the whole. The
honest English, the prudent Scotch and the industrious Germans
are ranked with the "drumlie Dutch" and the sparring Irish and
the virtues of the former are lost sight of in the vices of
the latter.
3dly. Because the English and Scotch who make good
citizens wherever they go, could find a home as pleasant,
either in Canada or South America as they can in the United
States; and because in these countries they will be kindly
received, honoured and respected, while in the United States
they are neither honored nor respected and are constantly
frowned upon because they are foreigners.
But I don't wish emigrants from Ireland to come to the
United States-
1st. Because the lower classes of the Celtic Irish
conduct themselves worse than any other emigrants that come to
America. They are generally intemperate and quarrelsome, a
disgrace to themselves and a disgrace to their country. Go to
any of the large cities of the United States - New Orleans for
instance - and witness a riot there and you will find Paddy
engaged in it. Go to a court of Justice in the same city and
you will hear "Barney Mulligan" or "Peter O'Flinn" or "Thady
O'Keen" or "Biddy Brannigan" accused of larceny and sentenced
to a longer or shorter period in some place of confinement.
Go to the jails and penitentiaries of the country and there
also will you find the "Emerald Isle" but too well represented
These statements are humiliating but not less humiliating than
true. But I don't wish the Irish to come.
2dly. Because the feelings of bitterness entertained
against England by the United States people are constantly
aggravated by Irish prejudice and misrepresentation. (And let
cisatlantic and transatlantic orators say what they please in
their banquet speeches about the friendship existing between
the two countries) there is no good feeling in this country
towards England. The Revolution and its scenes are bitterly
remembered and the wrongs perpetrated by our forefathers on
the colonies will never, I fear, be forgiven. The United
States people dislike England and the Irish emigrants by their
tales of misery and woe increase that dislike. Most of the
Celtic Irish are the deadliest enemies of England and
Englishmen and it is their delight and practice to vilify
both. They represent Ireland as the worst governed country in
the world - as groaning beneath the weight of the burdens
imposed by the english government - as struggling to be free
and yet unable to break the chains with which she is bound.
Now, the Americans being impulsive people and great admirers
(as they affect to be) of patriots and patriotism, become so
much excited by these representations as to be almost ready
sometimes to rush across the Atlantic and rescue the "green
gem" from the grasp of England, carry it over to the land of
the west on their backs "hitch it on" to Cape Lookout or
Capr Hatteras and make it one of the confederated, star
adorned sisters!
This unkind feeling towards "Old England" is much to be
regretted. It ought not to exist - at least it ought not to be
aggravated by Irish misrepresentation. England and the United
States ought to be friends. Both peoples should be friends
and both governments friends. They are bound together by
commercial ties and by ties of blood. The only two countries
on earth where human rights are acknowledged and perfect
freedom known, they ought to go side by side and hand in hand
battling for the sacred cause of liberty.
Yours truly,
ERIN GO BRAGH.
