esent history of Ireland. They show at once the
poverty of the people, their love of industry, and their eagerness to do
work when they can get it. In this, and in other convent schools
throughout Ireland, the youngest children are trained to habits of
industry. They are paid even for their first imperfect attempts, to
encourage them to go on; and they treasure up the few weekly pence they
earn as a lady would her jewels. One child had in this way nearly saved
up enough to buy herself a pair of shoes--a luxury she had not as yet
possessed; but before the whole amount was procured she went to her
eternal home, where there is no want, and her last words were a message
of love and gratitude to the nuns who had taught her.
The causes of emigration, as one should think, are patent to all.
Landlords do not deny that they are anxious to see the people leave the
country. They give them every assistance to do so. Their object is to
get more land into their own hands, but the policy will eventually prove
suicidal. A revolutionary spirit is spreading fast through Europe.
Already the standing subject of public addresses to the people in
England, is the injustice of certain individuals being allowed to hold
such immense tracts of country in their possession. We all know what
came of the selfish policy of the landowners in France before the
Revolution, which consigned them by hundreds to the guillotine. A little
self-sacrifice, which, in the end, would have been for their own
benefit, might have saved all this. The attempt to depopulate Ireland
has been tried over and over again, and has failed signally. It is not
more likely to succeed in the nineteenth century than at any preceding
period. Even were it possible that wholesale emigration could benefit
any country, it is quite clear that Irish emigration cannot benefit
England. It is a plan to get rid of a temporary difficulty at a terrific
future cost. Emigration has ceased to be confined to paupers.
Respectable farmers are emigrating, and taking with them to America
bitter memories of the cruel injustice which has compelled them to leave
their native land.
Second, _How misery leads to emigration_. The poor are leaving the
country, because they have no employment. The more respectable classes
are leaving the country, because they prefer living in a free land,
where they can feel sure that their hard earnings will be their own, and
not their landlord's, and where they are not subj
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