Extract from the Article:- A Glance at Irish Statistics
The emigration of the Irish people - the exodus, as it has
been not inaptly termed - is undoubtedly the most striking
feature of the time, and that to which one one first would
turn. Nothing of a similiar kind has ever occurred in the
history of the world, and it is hard to conceive that a state
of things shall again exist, which could produce a similiar
result. Emigration unquestionably has existed at all times,
but how unlike that which we are daily witnessing. When
ancient Greece sent out her colonist, he went forth with a
community which represented the whole society of which he had
been a member; a complete section of the old republic,
comprising both its aristocratical and democratical elements,
started from the rocky promontories of Greece for their new
settlements on the coasts of Asia, or the islands and
peninsulas of the Mediterranean. A nominal tribute sometimes
acknowledged a connection with the mother country, but
nothing like dependency on her was ever claimed or admitted.
The Grecian colonist, with some greater advantages perhaps
of climate or of soil, found himself, in all other particulars,
a member of a society precisely similar to that in which he
was reared, and his habits and pursuits continued unaltered.
The other great nation of aniquity likewise had her
emigrations; but the Roman colonist went forth a soldier and
a conquerer; by the force of his sword he fought his way
through central Europe to Gaul, and on to the then remote
territories of Britain; having subjugated the various races
he encountered, he, and his fellow warriors settled amongst
them on the beneficia or military locations which were the
rewards of their conquest, impressing their laws on the
vanquished people, and holding their possessions by their
might and the terror of their name. This mighty empire was
again itself doomed to be overrun, and to sink under the
weight of migrations the most overwhelming and most ruthless
the world ever saw. The northern hordes, in numbers which
seemed unlimitable, and with fierceness which was
irresistible, swept over the domains of Rome, and established
themselves in the very citadel of her empire. Carrying with
them that peculiar relation, known amongst themselves as
[on--------onship?], a sort of voluntary connection which
associated their youth in several bands, with leaders of
their choice whom they selected for their spirit or ability,
and combining it with the system of military fees, which they
found established in the empire, they from this two-fold
element gave rise to that feudal system which has impressed
itself so deeply on the habits and sentiments of all modern
Europe, and on no portion of it more strongly than on the
British Islands.
How widely dissimiliar to all this is the expatriation of
the Irish emigrant. His is no hostile invasion,
revolutionising the society amongst which he comes,
originating a new phase of civilisation, and giving birth
to new sentiments and habits of thought; still less does he
find himself transferred to another clime, unconscious of any
change but that of locality, and surrounded by the same
public relations, and the same social feelings, that he had
ever been used to. No, he goes forth, unprotected, to the
land of the stranger; he renounces all allegiance
and dependence on the country of his birth, and becomes the
citizen of a strange people, in a foreign, if not a hostile,
land. To America the great stream of emigration has been
directed; and in America the emigrant has, for the most part,
every reason to congratulate himself on his lot. This the
great weight of evidence from every district incontestably
establishes. True, it may be, that in some localities the
emigrant has become a drug on the market. The following,
for example, we read from New York, under date of the 24th
December,1854:- "We have 20,000 emigrants, and no work for
them; 7,000 are in the poor house, maintained by the city, of
whom 6,000 are foreigners. We must tax emigrants." This,
however, we believe to be the exceptional case; the general
success of the Irish emigrant is incontestable. Surely, no
better evidence of it can be afforded than that, which is to
be found in the amount of remittances almost invariably made
for the purpose of bringing their relatives and friends after
them to the country of their adoption. In the vast majority
of cases the funds which enable tthe Irish labourer to
emigrate come from those that preceded him. Those remittances
have continued gradually to increase from the year 1848, when
they amounted to about half-a million sterling, up to 1853,
when they reached the extraordinary amount of a million and
a half-remittances consisting of sums never exceeding a few
pounds, and sent by those who never before in their lives
knew what it was to have so much to dispose of. Prosperous
however, as may be the condition of the emigrant, in what
light are we to regard the effect of the exodus on our own
country, and on the interests of those who remain at home? We
would first naturally try to ascertain the extent to which it
has gone; but here we have a difficulty, for we have no
register but of those who have sailed direct from Irish
Ports; and we know that we see great multitudes of our
countrymen passing through our chief cities, on their way to
Liverpool, or other English or Scotch ports, there to take
shipping for America, Australia, or the land of their
adoption, wheresoever it may be. Looking only to the return
from the Irish ports, it would appear as if emigration was at
its height in the year 1847, when the numbers amounted to
96,000; two years afterwards they had fallen to 70,000, and
in the year 1853, to about 34,000. *(The numbers are in all
cases given precisely in Mr Thom's publication; but we adopt
the next round number for facility of expression;) Much of
the seeming decline is, however, to be ascribed to the more
frequent practice of taking shipping from England. The spirit
of emigration is still rife among the peasantry; it is the
one object ever present in the mind of the Irish labourer. If
we look at the returns from the whole of the United Kingdom,
we shall find that in the year 1853, the emigrants amounted
to the vast number of 330,000. And this, at least, we have
ascertained , that between pestilence and emigration, the
population of Ireland fell off considerably more than a
million and a half in the ten years previous to 1851.
