d a ground for recriminating
on us when we talk of the barbarities of Bonner and Gardiner;
and the harshness of those odious laws was aggravated by a
more odious administration. For, bad as the legislators were,
the magistrates were worse still. In those evil times originated
that most unhappy hostility between landlord and tenant, which
is one of the peculiar curses of Ireland. Oppression and
turbulence reciprocally generated each other. The combination
of rustic tyrants was resisted by gangs of rustic banditii.
Courts of law and juries existed only for the benefit of the
dominant sect. Those priests who were revered by millions
as their natural advisers and guardians, as the only authorised
dispensers of the Christian sacraments, were treated by the
squires and squireens of the ruling faction as no good-natured
man would treat the vilest beggar."

When I came into political life shortly after 1848, I found
this anti-Catholic feeling most intense. The Catholics in
Massachusetts were, in general, in a very humble class. The
immigration, which had well begun before the great Irish Famine,
was increased very much by that terrible calamity. The Irishmen
were glad to build our railroads at sixty cents a day, dwelling
in wretched shanties, and living on very coarse fare. They
had brought with them the habit of drinking whiskey, comparatively
harmless in their native climate--though bad enough there--
but destructive in New England. So they contributed very
largely to the statistics of crime and disorder.

Even then they gave an example--from which all mankind might
take a lesson--of many admirable qualities. They had a most
pathetic and touching affection for the Old Country. They
exhibited an incomparable generosity toward the kindred they
had left behind. From their scanty earnings, Edward Everett,
a high authority, estimates that there were sent twenty millions
of dollars in four years to their parents and kindred.

There was some jealousy on the part of our working people,
especially the men and women employed in large manufacturing
establishments, lest the Irish, by working at cheaper wages,
would drive them out of employment. But the Irishman soon
learned to demand all the wages he could get. The accession
of the Irish laborer increased largely the productive forces
of the State. So there was more wealth created, of which
the better educated and shrewder Yankee got the larger share.
By the bringi