hich even in death expressed suffering, I
thought that perhaps he had left a mother and a home to seek
wealth in America. I saw him buried under a group of locust
trees, his very name unknown to those who laid him there, but
the attendance of the whole family at the grave, gave a sort of
decency to his funeral which rarely, in that country, honors the
poor relics of British dust: but no clergyman attended, no
prayer was said, no bell was tolled; these, indeed, are
ceremonies unthought of, and in fact unattainable without much
expense, at such a distance from a town; had the poor youth been
an American, he would have been laid in the earth in the same
unceremonious manner. But had this poor Irish lad fallen sick
in equal poverty and destitution among his own people, he would
have found a blanket to wrap his shivering limbs, and a kindred
hand to close his eyes.

The poor of great Britain, whom distress, or a spirit of
enterprise tempt to try another land, ought, for many reasons,
to repair to Canada; there they would meet co-operation and
sympathy, instead of malice, hatred, and all uncharitableness.

I frequently heard vehement complaints, and constantly met the
same in the newspapers, of a practice stated to be very generally
adopted in Britain of sending out cargoes of parish paupers to
the United States. A Baltimore paper heads some such remarks
with the words

"INFAMOUS CONDUCT!"

and then tells us of a cargo of aged paupers just arrived from
England, adding, "John Bull has squeezed the orange, and now
insolently casts the skin in our faces." Such being the feeling,
it will be readily believed that these unfortunates are not
likely to meet much kindness or sympathy in sickness, or in
suffering of any kind. If these American statements be correct,
and that different parishes are induced, from an excessive
population, to pay the voyage and outfit of some of their paupers
across the Atlantic, why not send them to Canada?

It is certain, however, that all the enquiries I could make
failed to substantiate these American statements. All I could
ascertain was, that many English and Irish poor arrived yearly in
the United States, with no other resources than what their labour
furnished. This, though very different from the newspaper
stories, is quite enough to direct attention to the subject. It
is generally acknowledged that the suffering among our labouring
classes arises from the exce