THE EUROPEAN EXODUS.
We propose in the following pages to speak of the past history, the present condition, and the future prospects of European emigration to this country. We shall have to present many dry figures and prosaic statistics; but the investigation will lead us to regard the wonderful manner in which the wisdom and the love of God have been manifested in the control which he, as the ruler of all things, has exercised over this European exodus. Even out of those details of its course and progress which have seemed most deplorable, and have caused to many of God’s enlightened servants the greatest anxiety and grief, beneficent and grand results now begin to be discerned which are likely to secure the permanent establishment of the church in this land, and to prepare her for the magnificent task which, as we believe, she is destined to accomplish here—the salvation of the republic and of society from the utter ruin into which the arch-enemy of mankind would otherwise soon engulf them. The foolishness of men is sometimes the wisdom of God; and God, who governs all things sweetly, has chosen to turn the apparent folly of a large portion of the emigrants from Europe to the United States during the last twenty-five years into channels through which inestimable blessings have already flowed, and others, still more glorious, are yet to pass.
The great wave of emigration began to rise in 1840, reached its highest point in 1869-72, and, notwithstanding some fluctuations, continued to bring to our shores a colony every day until 1875. In that year it experienced a sudden and serious check, and has ever since steadily subsided, until now it has not only sunk to low-water mark, but has even seemed to be about to flow the other way. The official reports of the Commissioners of Emigration of the State of New York classify the passengers who arrive at this port from foreign countries as “aliens” and as “citizens or persons who had before landed in the United States”; and the “aliens” are subdivided into steerage and cabin passengers. It is safe to take the “alien steerage passengers” as persons who have come to this country for the first time with the purpose of residing here—in fine, as bonâ fide emigrants. The alien cabin passengers in most cases are tourists or visitors, although among them also are some emigrants. Now, the whole number of alien steerage passengers who arrived at the port of New York during the year 1876 was only 60,308, of whom 17,974 were from Germany, 12,728 from Ireland, 5,429 from England, 1,479 from Scotland, and 428 from Wales. The whole number of steerage emigrants from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland who landed at New York during this year was only 20,064—a much smaller number than arrived in any previous year since 1840. Indeed, in no previous year until 1875, when it was 34,636, had the number failed to be twice as great; in many years it was more than ten times as large. The following table will show the emigration of all classes from the United Kingdom into the United States at all our ports during the last thirty-six years:
| 1840 | 40,642 |
| 1841 | 45,017 |
| 1842 | 63,852 |
| 1843 | 28,335 |
| 1844 | 43,660 |
| 1845 | 58,538 |
| 1846 | 82,239 |
| 1847 | 142,154 |
| 1848 | 188,233 |
| 1849 | 219,450 |
| 1850 | 223,078 |
| 1851 | 267,357 |
| 1852 | 244,261 |
| 1853 | 230,885 |
| 1854 | 193,065 |
| 1855 | 103,414 |
| 1856 | 111,837 |
| 1857 | 126,905 |
| 1858 | 50,716 |
| 1859 | 70,303 |
| 1860 | 87,500 |
| 1861 | 42,764 |
| 1862 | 58,706 |
| 1863 | 146,813 |
| 1864 | 147,042 |
| 1865 | 147,258 |
| 1866 | 161,000 |
| 1867 | 159,275 |
| 1868 | 155,532 |
| 1869 | 203,001 |
| 1870 | 196,075 |
| 1871 | 198,843 |
| 1872 | 233,747 |
| 1873 | 233,073 |
| 1874 | 148,161 |
| 1875 | 92,489 |
| 1876 | [[72]]54,554 |
The 54,554 persons who, not being citizens of the United States, arrived in this country from the United Kingdom in 1876, embrace all those who came either for pleasure, or for business, or to remain. But during the same year 54,697 persons of Irish and British origin arrived in the United Kingdom from the United States; so that the emigration from this country to the United Kingdom exceeded the immigration into the United States from the United Kingdom by 143 souls. The English Board of Trade, in publishing these returns, says that “as regards North America, in fact, the records of 1876 are the records of a movement of passengers to and fro, and the so-called emigration is not really emigration.” We digress here, for a moment, to speak of one or two facts disclosed by the emigration returns of the British Board of Trade for 1876, which cast a side light upon a portion of our subject.
The total emigration from the United Kingdom to places out of Europe in 1876 was 138,222 persons; the total immigration into the Kingdom was 91,647 persons, showing an apparent loss of population of 46,575. But after deducting from both sides the persons of other than British birth, the net loss of population to the United Kingdom by emigration is reduced to 38,000 persons—a percentage scarcely worth mention when compared with the annual increase by births. As regards the emigration from that Kingdom to the United States, it is noted not only that it has become very small, but that its character has materially changed. Only 73 agricultural laborers sailed from England for the United States, but no less than 3,191 of this class sailed for Australia; while, on the other hand, “4,535 gentlemen, professional men, merchants, etc., and 10,874 persons of no occupation, have gone to the States, and only 1,106 of the first-named class and 2,753 of the second migrated to Australia.” The returns go on to point out that emigration from Ireland, and of Irishmen living in England and Scotland, has almost entirely ceased. “The total number of persons of Irish origin who emigrated from the United Kingdom in 1876 to places out of Europe was 25,976.” Of these 16,432 came to the United States; some of these were only visitors; but counting them all as emigrants, they would not number as many as arrived here in a single month in former years.
The gradual but steady decrease of Irish emigration to the United States is pointed out in these returns in a forcible and apparently exultant manner. From 1853 to 1860 the annual average of Irish emigration to this country was 71,856; during the ten years following it was 69,084; in 1871 it fell to 65,591; in 1874 it was 48,136; in 1875 it was 31,433; and last year it sank to 16,432.[[73]] “The Irish people,” says the Board of Trade with evident satisfaction, “do not at present migrate from the United Kingdom in any appreciable numbers, although they may emigrate from one part of the United Kingdom to another.” We cannot call the correctness of this statement into question; it is no doubt quite correct; and it is safe to conclude that, for the present at least, and probably for many years to come, Irish emigration to this country will be limited to very small proportions. Nay, there is some reason to fear that, unless a marked improvement soon occurs in the industrial affairs of our country, we shall be in danger of seeing too many of our Irish and Irish-American citizens leaving us to seek homes in Australia. The year 1877 is scarcely six months old, but it has seen three vessels sail from this port with American, Irish, and German emigrants for Australia. This movement is probably a wholly sporadic one, and too much importance should not be attached to it. But we are not yet in a condition to encourage emigration from this country nor to desire to see it under any circumstances. We wish still to receive many millions of people from the Old World, and, as we shall show, there is a strong probability that we shall obtain them.
Emigration from the Continent of Europe, while showing a decrease, has not diminished in such a marked degree as that from the United Kingdom. The whole number of alien emigrants who arrived at the port of New York during the thirty years ending December 31, 1876, was 5,604,073. Of these 2,920,397 were natives of Great Britain and Ireland; 2,665,774 were natives of the Continent; and the remaining 17,902 came from all the other countries of the earth. The following table will show the exact number of emigrants from each country arriving at the port of New York during the last thirty years:
FROM GREAT BRITAIN.
| Ireland | 2,001,727 |
| England | 732,922 |
| Scotland | 157,578 |
| Wales | 28,170 |
| 2,920,397 |
FROM AMERICA.
| South America | 3,066 |
| West Indies | 7,897 |
| Nova Scotia | 1,611 |
| Canada | 1,397 |
| Mexico | 1,030 |
| Central America | 289 |
| 15,290 |
FROM CONTINENTAL EUROPE.
| Germany | 2,121,020 |
| France | 107,710 |
| Switzerland | 81,798 |
| Holland | 39,069 |
| Norway | 44,772 |
| Sweden | 116,655 |
| Italy | 42,769 |
| Belgium | 10,096 |
| Spain | 7,796 |
| Denmark | 32,974 |
| Poland | 11,291 |
| Sardinia | 2,306 |
| Portugal | 1,791 |
| Russia | 22,124 |
| Sicily | 339 |
| Greece | 269 |
| Turkey | 242 |
| Austria | 21,677 |
| Luxembourg | 1,076 |
| 2,663,774 |
FROM THE ORIENT.
| China | 1,057 |
| East Indies | 304 |
| Arabia | 14 |
| Africa | 191 |
| Australia | 225 |
| Japan | 175 |
| Unknown | 646 |
| 2,612 | |
| 5,604,073 |
We may remark that fourteen of the countries in this list are Roman Catholic countries, and that the emigrants from these number 2,212,963 souls. The proportion of Catholics among the emigrants from the other twenty-one countries would probably be, taking them altogether, not less than one-fourth of the whole number—597,772. This would give a Catholic emigration at the port of New York alone, during these thirty years, of about 2,800,000 souls. But we shall return to this part of our subject later on.
The emigration from Germany at the port of New York during the year 1876 was 21,035 persons, of whom 17,974 were steerage passengers; in 1875 the number was 25,559; during the twenty-eight years from 1847 to 1875 the average number of emigrants arriving from Germany at this port had been 75,000 annually. The severe and sudden check which emigration received in 1875 must be traced, in the case of Germany, almost wholly to the effects of the financial disasters which had occurred in the United States, and which had then begun to be heavily felt. The Germans are a prudent people; they are exceedingly well informed concerning the condition of affairs here, and they were well advised not to come to a new country at a moment when industry and trade were prostrated, when labor was superabundant and poorly paid, and when confidence and enterprise were so paralyzed that capital could find no productive or safe employment. The restrictive measures against emigration instigated and enforced by Prince Bismarck, and the financial distress which prevailed, and which still prevails, in Germany, had also their influence in discouraging and retarding emigration; but the principal cause of its decline in the case of Germany was the one we have mentioned. When that cause shall have ceased to act, as there is reason to believe it soon will do, we can expect with confidence a revival of emigration from Germany and the other Continental countries of Europe. Should the present war in the East become general and involve all Europe, the anxiety of the people to escape its horrors and burdens will increase the desire for emigration, but their facilities for seeking a new home will probably be lessened by the same causes. We must, in all likelihood, wait for the return of prosperity here and of peace in Europe before the great wave of emigration again rises to its former level. There is no reason to doubt that in due time it will again attain its former proportions; but the principal countries from whence we must hereafter look for our emigrants are Germany, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Holland, and perhaps England. The emigration of the future, most probably, will to a large extent be composed of people possessed of some capital, and prepared to begin their new life under far more favorable conditions than those which surrounded the Irish and German emigrants of past years upon their arrival here. The latter, landing here too often with no capital but their muscles, their honest hearts, and strong but often uncultivated intellects, have accomplished the work to which they were ordained. Their successors will find much prepared for them, but they also will have their mission to fulfil.
Let us now endeavor to ascertain with as much accuracy as possible in what manner our foreign-born citizens have disposed of themselves, and what it is that they have done and are doing for us, for themselves, and for God. It appears that, according to the census of 1870, the whole number of foreign-born persons then in the United States was 5,567,229, of whom 62,736 were Chinese, 9,654 were negroes, and 1,136 were Indians. There were also 9,734,845 persons who had been born in this country, but whose parents were all of foreign birth, and 1,157,170 others the father or mother of each of whom had been of foreign birth. These 16,459,244 persons constituted, in 1870, the whole of that portion of our population which could in any way be classed as foreign or as being under the immediate domestic influence of foreigners. There remained 22,099,132 persons, who were not only native-born, but whose parents on both sides were natives. Let us deal, first, with the persons of foreign birth. In 1850 there were but 2,244,602 persons of this class; in 1860 they had increased to 4,138,697, and in 1870 to 5,567,229 souls. The following table will show their nationalities:
| Ireland | 1,855,827 |
| England | 550,688 |
| Scotland | 140,809 |
| Wales | 74,530 |
| Great Britain[[74]] | 4,117 |
| Germany | 1,690,410 |
| France | 116,240 |
| Denmark | 30,098 |
| Holland | 46,801 |
| Hungary | 3,649 |
| Italy | 17,147 |
| Belgium | 12,552 |
| Luxembourg | 5,802 |
| Austria | 30,506 |
| Bohemia | 40,287 |
| Norway | 114,243 |
| Poland | 14,435 |
| Portugal | 4,495 |
| Russia | 4,638 |
| Spain | 3,701 |
| Sweden | 97,327 |
| Switzerland | 75,145 |
| Turkey | 301 |
| Malta | 51 |
| China | 63,042 |
| Greece | 390 |
| Greenland | 3 |
| India | 551 |
| Japan | 73 |
| Africa | 673 |
| Asia | 834 |
| Australia | 3,111 |
| Pacific Isles | 305 |
| Sandwich Isles | 539 |
| South America | 3,378 |
| West Indies | 4,897 |
| Mexico | 41,308 |
| Cuba | 4,811 |
| Atlantic Isles | 4,219 |
| British America | 489,344 |
| At sea | 2,612 |
| Unknown | 2,135 |
We have omitted from the above table 9,654 negroes and 1,136 Indians, born outside of the United States.
Where now do we find these five and a half millions of foreign-born citizens? The greater part of them—4,193,971—were congregated in ten States, as shown by the following table:
TABLE OF TEN STATES HAVING 200,000 OR MORE OF FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION.
| STATES. | 1870. | 1860. | 1850. |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | 209,831 | 146,518 | 21,802 |
| Illinois | 515,198 | 324,643 | 111,892 |
| Iowa | 204,692 | 106,077 | 20 969 |
| Massachusetts | 353,319 | 260,106 | 164,024 |
| Michigan | 268,010 | 149,093 | 54,703 |
| Missouri | 221,267 | 160,541 | 76,592 |
| New York | 1,138,353 | 1,001,280 | 655,929 |
| Ohio | 372 493 | 328,249 | 218,193 |
| Pennsylvania | 545,309 | 430,505 | 303,417 |
| Wisconsin | 364,499 | 276,927 | 110,477 |
| 4,193,971 | 3,183,939 | 1,737,998 |
There were fourteen States each of which had an Irish-born population of less than 10,000 souls—to wit, Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, and Virginia; nineteen States each of which had an Irish-born population of less than 100,000—to wit, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin; while Illinois had 120,000, Massachusetts 216,000, Pennsylvania 235,000, and New York 528,000 Irish-born citizens. Eighteen States had each a German-born population of less than 10,000—namely, Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia. Thirteen States had each a German-born population of less than 100,000—namely, California, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, and Texas; while Missouri had 113,618, Pennsylvania 160,146, Wisconsin 162,314, Ohio 182,889, Illinois 203,750, and New York 316,882. The following table will show the exact number of persons of Austrian, German, French, and Irish birth residing in each State in 1870:
| States. | Austrian. | French. | German. | Irish. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 99 | 587 | 2,479 | 3,893 |
| Arkansas | 41 | 236 | 1,562 | 1,428 |
| California | 1,078 | 8,063 | 29,699 | 54,421 |
| Connecticut | 154 | 820 | 1,243 | 70,630 |
| Delaware | 8 | 127 | 1,141 | 5,007 |
| Florida | 17 | 126 | 595 | 737 |
| Georgia | 34 | 308 | 2,760 | 5,093 |
| Illinois | 2,099 | 10,908 | 203,750 | 120,162 |
| Indiana | 443 | 6,362 | 78,056 | 28,698 |
| Iowa | 2,691 | 3,130 | 66,160 | 40,124 |
| Kansas | 448 | 1,274 | 12,774 | 10,040 |
| Kentucky | 146 | 2,052 | 30,318 | 21,642 |
| Louisiana | 433 | 12,288 | 18,912 | 17,068 |
| Maine | 10 | 136 | 508 | 15,745 |
| Maryland | 266 | 640 | 47,045 | 23 630 |
| Massachusetts | 255 | 1,627 | 13,070 | 216,120 |
| Michigan | 795 | 3,120 | 64,143 | 42,013 |
| Minnesota | 2,647 | 1,743 | 41,364 | 21,746 |
| Mississippi | 85 | 621 | 2,954 | 3,359 |
| Missouri | 1,493 | 6,291 | 113,618 | 54,983 |
| Nebraska | 299 | 340 | 10,954 | 4,999 |
| Nevada | 157 | 414 | 2,181 | 5,135 |
| New Hampshire | 9 | 59 | 436 | 12,190 |
| New Jersey | 686 | 3,128 | 53,999 | 86,784 |
| New York | 3,928 | 22,273 | 316,882 | 528,806 |
| North Carolina | 13 | 53 | 904 | 677 |
| Ohio | 3,699 | 12,778 | 182,889 | 82,674 |
| Oregon | 53 | 308 | 1,875 | 1,967 |
| Pennsylvania | 1,556 | 8,682 | 160,146 | 235,798 |
| Rhode Island | 19 | 167 | 1,200 | 31,534 |
| South Carolina | 10 | 143 | 2,742 | 3,262 |
| Tennessee | 112 | 562 | 4,525 | 8,048 |
| Texas | 1,748 | 2,226 | 23,976 | 4,031 |
| Vermont | 2 | 93 | 370 | 14,080 |
| Virginia | 56 | 368 | 4,050 | 5,191 |
| West Virginia | 59 | 223 | 6,231 | 6,832 |
| Wisconsin | 4,486 | 2,704 | 162,314 | 48,479 |
| 30,104 | 116,240 | 1,690,410 | 1,855,827 |
These four nationalities, then, account for 3,692,581 of the foreign-born population in 1870; and the remaining 1,874,648 had their birth in the other thirty-five different countries named in one of our preceding tables. A glance over the table just given will show still more plainly within what limits the great bulk of the Irish and German born population is found; and the reader will remember that we have shown that all but 1,373,258 of the entire foreign-born population were residing in the ten States of California, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In twenty of the States the persons of Irish birth exceeded those of German birth; in the remaining seventeen States the latter outnumbered the former. The excess of persons of Irish birth over those of German birth, however, was only 165,417. This was seven years ago. During these seven years the emigration from Germany has almost equalled that from Ireland, and for the thirty years last past, taken as a whole, the arrivals from Germany have exceeded those from Ireland by 119,293 souls. We shall probably not be far out of the way if we assume that the entire foreign-born population of the United States is at present about seven millions, of whom two and a half millions are of German, and nearly an equal number of Irish, birth. Let us, however, continue to confine ourselves for the present to the official facts in our possession, and proceed to follow up the 5,567,229 persons of foreign birth whom we know were among us in 1870.
One of the remarks most frequently made concerning the foreign-born population of this country is that it has a general disposition to congregate in our large cities, from which have come consequences highly prejudicial both to itself and to the community at large. These two assertions have been made so persistently and in such good faith; they have seemed to be so susceptible of proof and so apparently true; and they have chimed in so well with the sometimes latent and sometimes active prejudice against “foreigners” which is so often found in the breasts of the natives of every country, that they have passed current almost without challenge and have come to be regarded as axioms. Nay, not a few of our foreign-born citizens themselves, and even of the Catholic bishops and clergy, have often accepted these two assertions as true, and have not ceased to deplore the crowding of the foreign population into the large cities, regarding it as an almost unmixed evil, and pointing to it as the source of direful woe. No doubt they have had some reason on their side. A large proportion of the crime and misery of our cities is perpetrated and suffered by foreign-born citizens or by their children in the first generation. Had these citizens not been gathered together in the cities, but scattered at remote distances throughout the country, they might have been criminal and miserable, but their crime and misery would not have been so obtrusive and apparent to every observer. But, leaving this point for a moment to return to it in the light of the facts we are about to adduce, let us see what amount of truth there is in these two assertions. We may remark, in passing, that the truth of the first does not necessarily imply the truth of the second: it may be true that the foreign-born population has congregated to an apparently undue and unwise extent in our cities, but it may not be true that this has been by any means an unmixed evil either to the foreigners themselves or to the native-born.
POPULATION, NATIVE AND FOREIGN, OF THE LARGE CITIES, 1870.
| CITIES. | Scotch. | French. | Austrian. | Belgian. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York | 7,559 | 8,240 | 2,737 | 325 |
| Philadelphia | 4,175 | 2,471 | 519 | 116 |
| Brooklyn | 4,098 | 1,892 | 321 | 142 |
| St. Louis | 1,202 | 2,788 | 751 | 254 |
| Chicago | 4,195 | 1,417 | 704 | 392 |
| Baltimore | 525 | 428 | 215 | 29 |
| Boston | 1,794 | 615 | 124 | 31 |
| Cincinnati | 787 | 2,090 | 554 | 46 |
| New Orleans | 568 | 8,806 | 253 | 134 |
| San Francisco | 1,687 | 3,543 | 470 | 139 |
| Buffalo | 996 | 2,332 | 135 | 37 |
| Washington | 298 | 191 | 26 | 8 |
| Newark | 870 | 710 | 261 | 45 |
| Louisville | 298 | 856 | 69 | 31 |
| Cleveland | 668 | 339 | 2,155 | 16 |
| Pittsburgh | 584 | 348 | 117 | 9 |
| Jersey City | 1,175 | 276 | 69 | 43 |
| Detroit | 1,637 | 760 | 161 | 233 |
| Milwaukee | 423 | 189 | 574 | 79 |
| Albany | 427 | 149 | 36 | 17 |
| Providence | 575 | 72 | 5 | 1 |
| Rochester | 428 | 475 | 39 | 4 |
| Allegheny | 570 | 619 | 109 | 6 |
| Richmond | 146 | 144 | 29 | 5 |
| New Haven | 347 | 133 | 54 | 6 |
| Charleston | 115 | 97 | 39 | 4 |
| Indianapolis | 258 | 237 | 14 | 5 |
| Troy | 462 | 88 | 14 | 7 |
| Syracuse | 138 | 276 | 47 | 1 |
| Worcester | 187 | 29 | 12 | 1 |
| Lowell | 469 | 28 | 3 | 3 |
| Memphis | 119 | 207 | 14 | 10 |
| Cambridge | 298 | 100 | 9 | 1 |
| Hartford | 359 | 92 | 20 | 6 |
| Scranton | 366 | 64 | 4 | — |
| Reading | 35 | 77 | 36 | 2 |
| Paterson | 879 | 237 | 48 | 21 |
| Kansas City | 180 | 110 | 44 | 1 |
| Mobile | 166 | 311 | 33 | 11 |
| Toledo | 119 | 206 | 93 | — |
| Portland | 172 | 23 | 2 | 1 |
| Columbus | 133 | 238 | 20 | — |
| Wilmington | 117 | 64 | — | 2 |
| Dayton | 90 | 242 | 28 | 2 |
| Lawrence | 691 | 4 | 9 | 2 |
| Utica | 198 | 287 | 25 | 2 |
| Charlestown | 89 | 29 | 1 | 2 |
| Savannah | 72 | 99 | 5 | — |
| Lynn | 72 | 5 | 1 | — |
| Fall River | 382 | 3 | 4 | 2 |
| Totals | 43,055 | 42,430 | 11,218 | 2,232 |
| CITIES. | Native. | Irish. | German. | English. | Brit. Amer. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York | 523,198 | 201,999 | 151,203 | 24,408 | 4,372 |
| Philadelphia | 490,398 | 96,698 | 50,746 | 22,034 | 1,453 |
| Brooklyn | 251,381 | 73,985 | 36,769 | 18,832 | 2,779 |
| St. Louis | 198,615 | 32,239 | 59,040 | 5,366 | 1,986 |
| Chicago | 154,420 | 39,988 | 52,316 | 10,026 | 9,528 |
| Baltimore | 210,870 | 15,223 | 35,276 | 2,138 | 292 |
| Boston | 162,540 | 56,900 | 5,606 | 5,968 | 13,548 |
| Cincinnati | 136,627 | 18,624 | 49,446 | 3,524 | 1,175 |
| New Orleans | 142,943 | 14,693 | 15,224 | 2,005 | 384 |
| San Francisco | 75,754 | 25,864 | 13,602 | 5,166 | 2,237 |
| Buffalo | 71,477 | 11,264 | 22,249 | 3,558 | 4,113 |
| Washington | 95,442 | 6,948 | 4,131 | 1,231 | 211 |
| Newark | 69,175 | 12,481 | 15,873 | 4,040 | 296 |
| Louisville | 75,085 | 7,626 | 14,380 | 930 | 311 |
| Cleveland | 54,014 | 9,964 | 15,855 | 4,530 | 2,599 |
| Pittsburgh | 58,254 | 13,119 | 8,703 | 2,838 | 282 |
| Jersey City | 50,711 | 17,665 | 7,151 | 4,005 | 556 |
| Detroit | 44,196 | 6,970 | 12,647 | 3,282 | 7,398 |
| Milwaukee | 37,667 | 3,784 | 22,599 | 1,395 | 792 |
| Albany | 47,215 | 13,276 | 5,168 | 1,572 | 843 |
| Providence | 51,727 | 12,085 | 592 | 2,426 | 1,038 |
| Rochester | 41,202 | 6,078 | 7,730 | 2,530 | 2,619 |
| Allegheny City | 37,872 | 4,034 | 7,665 | 1,112 | 152 |
| Richmond | 47,260 | 1,239 | 1,621 | 289 | 42 |
| New Haven | 36,482 | 9,601 | 2,423 | 1,087 | 336 |
| Charleston | 44,064 | 2,180 | 1,826 | 234 | 32 |
| Indianapolis | 37,587 | 3,321 | 5,286 | 697 | 297 |
| Troy | 30,246 | 10,877 | 1,174 | 1,575 | 1,697 |
| Syracuse | 29,061 | 5,172 | 5,062 | 1,345 | 1,167 |
| Worcester | 29,159 | 8,389 | 325 | 893 | 1,960 |
| Lowell | 26,493 | 9,103 | 34 | 1,697 | 3,034 |
| Memphis | 33,446 | 2,987 | 1,768 | 589 | 225 |
| Cambridge | 27,579 | 7,180 | 482 | 1,043 | 2,518 |
| Hartford | 26,363 | 7,438 | 1,438 | 787 | 396 |
| Scranton | 19,205 | 6,491 | 3,056 | 1,444 | 125 |
| Reading | 30,059 | 547 | 2,648 | 305 | 26 |
| Paterson | 20,711 | 5,124 | 1,429 | 3,347 | 128 |
| Kansas City | 24,581 | 2,869 | 1,884 | 709 | 821 |
| Mobile | 27,795 | 2,000 | 843 | 386 | 55 |
| Toledo | 20,485 | 3,032 | 5,341 | 694 | 984 |
| Portland | 24,401 | 3,900 | 82 | 557 | 2,017 |
| Columbus | 23,663 | 1,845 | 3,982 | 504 | 190 |
| Wilmington | 25,689 | 3,503 | 684 | 613 | 47 |
| Dayton | 23,050 | 1,326 | 4,962 | 394 | 131 |
| Lawrence | 16,204 | 7,457 | 467 | 2,456 | 1,563 |
| Utica | 18,955 | 3,496 | 2,822 | 1,352 | 261 |
| Charlestown | 21,399 | 4,803 | 216 | 488 | 1,119 |
| Savannah | 24,564 | 2,197 | 787 | 251 | 63 |
| Lynn | 23,298 | 3,232 | 17 | 330 | 1,133 |
| Fall River | 15,288 | 5,572 | 37 | 4,042 | 1,324 |
| Totals | 3,808,770 | 826,398 | 564,967 | 165,024 | 80,728 |
In fifty of the largest cities of the United States there was in 1870 a total native population of 3,808,770 souls; 826,398 persons of Irish birth; 564,967 of German birth; 165,024 of English birth; 80,728 natives of British America; 43,055 natives of Scotland; 42,430 natives of France; 11,218 natives of Austria; and 2,232 natives of Belgium—in all, 1,736,052 persons born in foreign countries.
The foregoing tables give the native population of each of these fifty cities, with the foreign population belonging to each of these eight nationalities.
The persons of foreign birth of other nationalities in the above cities would raise the whole number to about 1,800,000 souls.
It is to be noticed from this table, in the first place, that in these fifty cities, in 1870, the proportion of foreign-born to native inhabitants was almost exactly as 18 is to 38—1,800,000 to 3,808,770—while the proportion of foreign-born to native inhabitants in the entire Union was almost exactly as 5 is to 38—5,567,229 to 38,558,371. It must be confessed that on this showing there was an apparently or a really undue proportion of our foreign-born citizens congregated in the large cities. But it should be remembered that among the native-born population were the 10,892,015 persons who had been born here of parents, on one or both sides, of foreign birth, and who, to this extent, were quasi-foreign. If these be taken into account, the proportion of foreign-born and the immediate descendants of foreign-born persons to the rest of the population throughout the country in 1870 would have been as 16 to 38—16,459,239 to 38,558,371. This is really the more correct basis upon which to make the comparison; for without doubt a large proportion of the ten millions of persons born here of foreign parents were the children of the five millions of foreign-born persons; and it is perfectly natural that the parents and the children should be found living in the same localities. After giving to this consideration, however, all the weight to which it is entitled, the fact still remains that an apparently excessive proportion of our foreign-born citizens are to be found in the large cities.
Let us look still closer into the subject. The whole number of persons of Irish birth in the United States in 1870 was 1,855,827, and of these 826,398, or 44.4 per cent., were living in these fifty cities. There were 1,690,410 Germans, and 564,967 of them, or 33.4 per cent., were in the cities; 550,688 English, of whom 165,024, or nearly 30 per cent., were in the cities; 489,344 British Americans, of whom 80,728, or only 16.5 per cent., were in the cities; while 30 per cent. of the Scotch, 36.5 per cent. of the French, 36.7 per cent. of the Austrians, and 17.7 per cent. of the Belgians were in the same category. Our Irish fellow-citizens are the greatest sinners—if any are sinners in this respect—and after them, in a declining ratio, come the Austrians, French, Germans, Scotch, English, Belgians, and British Americans. The Irish, Austrians, French, and Germans are the Roman Catholic emigrants, and in the wisdom of God it has been ordained that they should be the ones most crowded into the cities. How have they performed there the work which he sent them to do?
Our cities are the centres of the intelligence, the culture, and the wealth of our country. They contain to a very large extent the brains of the republic. From them issue influences which sway, if they do not absolutely control, the thoughts and actions of the people. These influences are not, by any means, always altogether wholesome, but they are unquestionably potent. The newspapers, magazines, and other periodicals published in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, St. Louis, Chicago, Baltimore, Cincinnati, New Orleans, San Francisco, and Milwaukee have a circulation exceeding that of the similar publications of all the rest of the country combined. The serial publications of one firm in New York alone reach into the millions; the aggregate annual circulation of the New York daily and weekly journals is so large that mere figures expressing it convey but a faint idea of its extent. The publisher of a magazine in New York told the writer the other day that if the copies of his publication issued each year were stacked together, the column would be three times as high as Trinity Church steeple.
The social influences of the cities upon the rural districts are also powerful. The cities not only set the fashions in dress, but in political, moral, and religious thought and custom. The sturdy independence of the bucolic mind may yet boast of its existence, but it very often yields to the sway of urban ideas. A lady who had lived all her life in a small village, in which the only Catholic population consisted of a handful of poor Irish people, destitute of a church, and visited only at long intervals by a humble priest who celebrated the divine Mysteries in an attic over a liquor-store, not long ago came to New York, and was taken by her friends into one of our magnificent Catholic churches. The grandeur and beauty of the Mass were for the first time revealed to her; for the first time she obtained an idea of what the Catholic Church was and what it taught. By the grace of God her conversion followed, and, mainly through her exertions and her influence after her return home, her village is now blessed with a church, a resident priest, and a Catholic population composed largely of converts. In very many of our rural localities all over the Union the Catholics are few and poor; in too many of them the idea of a Roman Catholic in the minds of the natives is still associated only with the idea of an ignorant fanatic, who worships images, pays half a dollar to a priest to pardon him for a crime, and believes that the Pope is God. But when the country merchant of such a locality comes to New York to make his purchases, and sees the splendid Catholic churches here, and finds, perhaps, that the great importer with whom he deals, or the wealthy banker, or the renowned lawyer to whom he is introduced, is a Roman Catholic, and not unseldom an Irishman or a German, his eyes are opened and his mind is prepared for the reception of the truth. In a word, the congregation of foreign-born emigrants, the most of whom are Catholics, in our large cities, has had the effect of making the Catholic church in these cities a noticeable and a respectable fact, and of thereby accomplishing one of the preliminaries in the work which it has yet to perform in the republic. The influence of this fact is to be perceived, also, in the changed tone of the secular press with regard to the church. Respectable journalists, with few and decreasing exceptions, have become ashamed to repeat the vulgar and senseless slanders and the worn-out calumnies concerning the church, her ministers, her dogmas, and her sacraments which were so current twenty years ago. In communities consisting in an appreciable and often in a large proportion of intelligent, wealthy, and influential Catholics, the able editors do not venture any longer to amuse their readers with arguments based on the assumption that the church is the foe of knowledge and of education, and that her mission is to degrade, enslave, and pauperize mankind. In cities where the spires of dozens and scores of Catholic churches, tipped with the emblem of our salvation, point towards heaven; where Catholic hospitals, asylums, schools, and academies abound; where many of the most enterprising and wealthy merchants, manufacturers, and bankers are Catholics; where in the front rank of all the professions Catholics are found—in these communities it is no longer a social disgrace or a mark of singularity to be a Catholic, and a convert to the faith is no longer looked upon as a person of weak intellect or a slave to a benumbing and degrading superstition. We shall show, in the subsequent pages of our article, that for all this, to a very great extent, and under what seems to have been the direct guidance of God, we are indebted to the foreign-born population of the country, and that its accomplishment was made possible, humanly speaking, by their congregating themselves in the cities instead of dispersing in small bodies throughout the agricultural regions of the country. But we shall show, also, that, the work of God having thus far been accomplished, the time has now arrived when the future emigration to the United States should be directed towards the rural districts, under conditions which, until now, were practically impossible; and we shall seek to point out in what manner this new colonization may be best directed in order to promote the welfare of the emigrants themselves, the prosperity of our country, and the greater glory of God.
ALBA’S DREAM.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “ARE YOU MY WIFE?” “A SALON IN PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,” ETC.
PART I.
Once upon a time, some sixty years ago, on one of the bleakest points of the coast of Picardy, high perched like a light-house overhanging the sea, there was a building called the Fortress. You may see the ruins of it yet. It had been an abbey in olden times, and credible tales were told of a bearded abbot who “walked” at high water on the western parapet when the moon was full. One wing of the Fortress was a ruin at the time this story opens; the other had braved the stress of time and tempest, and looked out over the sea defiant as the rock on which it stood. The Caboffs lived in it. Jean Caboff was a wiry, lithe old man of seventy—a seafaring man every inch of him. His wealth was boundless, people said, and they also said that he had gained it as a pirate on the high seas. There was no proof that this was true; but every one believed it, and the belief invested Jean Caboff with a sort of wicked prestige which was not without its fascination in the eyes of the peaceful, unadventurous population of Gondriac. Caboff had a wife and three sons; the two eldest were away fighting with Bonaparte on the Rhine; Marcel, the youngest, was at home. A shy, awkward lad, he kept aloof from the village boys, never went bird’s-nesting or fishing with them, but moped like an owl up in his weather-beaten home. They were unsocial people, the Caboffs; they never asked any one inside their door; but the few who accidentally penetrated within the Fortress told wonderful stories of what they saw there; they talked of silken hangings and Persian carpets, and mirrors and pictures in golden frames, and marble men and maidens writhing and dancing in fantastic attitudes; of costly cabinets and jewelled vases, until the old corsair’s abode was believed to be a sort of enchanted castle. The stray visitors were too dazzled to notice certain things that jarred on this profuse magnificence. They did not notice that the damp had eaten away the gilded cornices, and the rats nibbled freely at the rich carpets, or that Jean Caboff smoked his pipe in a high-backed wooden chair, while Mme. Caboff cut out her home-spun linen on a stout deal table, the two forming a quaint and not unpicturesque contrast to the silken splendor of their surroundings.
Some five miles inland, beyond a wide stretch of gorse-grown moor, rose a wood, chiefly of pine-trees, and within the wood, a castle—a fine old Gothic castle where the De Gondriacs had dwelt for centuries. The castle and its owners, their grandeur and state and power, were the pride of the country, every peasant along the coast for fifty miles knew the history of the lords of Gondriac as well as, mayhap sometimes better than, he knew his catechism. The family at present consisted of Rudolf, Marquis de Gondriac, and his son Hermann. The Marquis was a hale man of sixty; Hermann a handsome lad of eighteen, who was at college now in Paris, so that M. le Marquis had no company but his books and his gun in the long autumn days. He was a silent, haughty man, who lived much alone and seldom had friends to stay with him. When Hermann was at home the aspect of the place changed; the château opened its doors with ancient hospitality, and laughter and music woke up the echoes of the old halls, and the village was astir as if a royal progress had halted on the plain; but when Hermann departed things fell back into the stagnant life he had stirred for a moment. It was natural that the young man’s holidays were eagerly looked forward to at Gondriac. But one August came, and, instead of returning home, Hermann joined a regiment that was on its way to the frontier. He went off in high-hearted courage as to the fulfilment of his boyish dreams. M. le Marquis, who had himself served in the guards of the Comte d’Artois, was proud of his son, of his soldier-like bearing and manly spirit, and kept the anguish of his own heart well out of sight as he bade the boy farewell. “I will come back a marshal of France, father,” was Hermann’s good-by.
Not long after his departure tidings were received of the death of Hugues Caboff, the old pirate’s eldest son. He had fallen gloriously on the field of battle; but glory is a sorry salve for broken hearts, and there was weeping in the Fortress that day—a mother weeping and refusing to be comforted. Old Jean Caboff bore his grief with an attempt at stoicism that went far to soften men’s hearts towards him—farther than his gold, which they said was ill-got, and his charity, which they called ostentation.
“Who may tell what will come next?” said Peltran, the host of the village inn.
“They say that M. le Marquis has been over to see the Caboffs,” said a customer, who dropped in to discuss the event. People felt for the Caboffs, but, there was no denying it, this sad news was a break in the dull monotony of Gondriac life.
“I saw his carriage at the foot of the cliff,” said Peltran; “he stayed full fifteen minutes up at the Fortress. Père Caboff conducted him down to his carriage, and Marcel stood watching them till it was out of sight.”
“It must have consoled them mightily to have M. le Marquis come in and sit talking to them in that neighborly fashion,” remarked lame Pierre, a hero who had lost a leg and an eye at Aboukir; “that, and poor Hugues being killed by a cannon-ball under the emperor’s own eye, ought to cheer up the Caboffs wonderfully.”
“Ay, ay,” said Peltran; “God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.”
“M. le Marquis looked as down-hearted as if he had lost a child of his own,” observed Pierre; “may be he was thinking whose turn it might be next.”
“There goes Mère Virginie with the little one!” said Peltran; and all present turned their heads towards the window and looked out with an expression of interest, as if the objects in view were a rare and pleasant sight. And yet it was one that met them in their daily walks by the roadside and on the cliff—the little old lady in her nun-like dress, with her keen gray eyes and sweet smile, and the dark-eyed, elfin-looking child whose name was Alba. Alba was always singing.
“Is not your little throat tired, my child?” said Virginie, as the blithe voice kept on soaring and trilling by her side.
“I am never tired singing, petite mère! Do the angels tire of it sometimes, I wonder?”
“Nay, the angels cannot tire; they are perfectly happy.”
“And I, petite mère—am I not perfectly happy?”
“Is there nothing you long for, nothing you would be the happier for having?”
“Oh! many things,” cried Alba: “I wish I were grown up; I wish I were as beautiful as the flowers; I wish I had a voice like the nightingale—like a whole woodful of nightingales; I wish I lived in a castle; I wish I were so rich that I might make all the poor people happy in Gondriac; I wish everybody loved me as you do. Oh! I should like them all to adore me, petite mère,” cried the child, clasping her little hands with energy.
“Nay, my child, we must adore none but God; woe to us if we do!” said Virginie, and her face contracted as with a sudden pain. “But it seems to me, with so many wishes unfulfilled, you are a long way off from perfect happiness yet?”
“But I am always dreaming that they are fulfilled, and that does as well, you know.”
Yes, perhaps it did, Virginie thought, as she bent a wistful smile on the young dreamer’s face. Alba’s face was full of dreams—beautiful and passionate, changeful as the sunbeams, tender and strong, pleading and imperious by turns. How would the dreams evolve themselves from out that yearning, untamed spirit that shone with a dangerous light through the dark eyes? Would they prove a mirage, luring her on to some delusive goal, and leaving her to perish amidst the golden waste of sands, or would they be a loadstar beckoning faithfully to a safe and happy destiny?
The child gave promise of rich fruit; her instincts were pure and true, her heart was tender; but there was a wild element in her nature that might easily overrule the rest, and work destruction to herself and others, unless it were reduced in time to serviceable bondage. Who could tell how this would be—whether the flower would keep its promise and prove loyal to the bud, or whether the fair blossom would perish in its bloom, and the tree bring forth a harvest of bitter fruit?
“It will be as you will it,” a wise man had said to Virginie; “the destiny of the child is in the hands of the mother, as the course of the ship is in the hands of the pilot.”
“Then Alba’s will be a happy one!” Virginie replied; “if love be omnipotent here below, my treasure is safe.”
Hermann de Gondriac had won his epaulets. Every post brought letters to the castle full of battles and victories; and though the young soldier was modest in his warlike narrative, it was clear to M. le Marquis that Hermann shone like a bright, particular star even in the galaxy of the grande armée, and that now, as in olden times, France had reason to be proud of the De Gondriacs. If the boy would but calm his rhapsodies about Bonaparte! M. le Marquis’ patrician soul heaved at the sight of this enthusiasm for the upstart who had muzzled his country and usurped the crown of her lawful princes. But he was a great captain, and it was natural, perhaps, that his soldiers should only think of this when he led them in triumph from field to field.
So far Hermann bore a charmed life. Not so the Caboffs. One day, some eight months after the death of the eldest son, the second brother followed him—“killed gloriously on the immortal field of Wagram,” the official letter announced in its most soothing style. M. le Marquis’ carriage was again seen standing at the foot of the cliff, and Peltran informed the population that he had remained over twenty minutes this time at the Fortress.
“M. le Marquis is a true grand seigneur, and never begrudges any condescension for the good of his inferiors,” observed the old tory host. “This time it was only Marcel who accompanied him down the cliff. Old Caboff, they say, was more cut up by this last blow; still, grief ought not to make a man selfish and unthankful.”
“Just so,” said lame Pierre, who sat puffing in the bar; “and it’s only what those two poor lads had to expect; moreover, since a man must die, better be killed in battle than die of the small-pox.”
“All the same, it’s hard on the folks up yonder,” remarked a bystander, “and it isn’t their money-bags—no, nor even M. le Marquis’ good words—that can comfort them to-day.”
Soon after this M. le Marquis left Gondriac rather suddenly one morning. After reading his letters he ordered his valise to be got ready, and in an hour he was posting to X——. There he dismissed the postchaise, and no one knew whither or how he had continued his route. Gondriac busied itself in endless conjectures as to the purport and destination of this mysterious journey. Had M. le Marquis been summoned to Paris to assist the government in some political crisis? Had he gone over to England to pour oil on the angry waters there? For the king of England was full of wrath and jealousy against the great emperor, and it was well known at Gondriac that he was plotting foul play of some sort against France. Or, again, could M. le Marquis’ hasty departure have had any reference to M. le Comte? Perhaps M. le Comte was wounded or a prisoner; who could tell? So the wiseacres gossiped, adopting first one theory, then another.
A month went by without throwing any light on the mystery. Then the cold set in suddenly, and the gossips had something else to talk about. The cruel winter was down upon them, catching them unprepared, so how were they to face it? They were only in October, and the wind blew from the northeast as if it were March, keeping up its shrill, hard whistle day and night, and the sea, as if it were exasperated by the sound, roared and foamed and thundered, till it seemed like a battle between them which should make most noise. And it was hard to say who carried the day.
One night, when the battle was at its fiercest, the wind shrieking its loudest, and the sea rolling up its biggest waves, Alba sat at her window watching the tempest with thrills of sympathetic terror. Virginie thought the child was in bed and asleep hours ago, and she was glad of it; for the storm drove right against the cottage, and burst upon it every now and then with a violence that shook her in her chair and made the walls rock. She was knitting away, but between the stitches many a prayer went up for those who were out breasting the fury of the hurricane. Suddenly a sound came up from the sea that made her start to her feet with a cry. Boom! boom! boom! it came in quick succession, leaping over the rocks with a sharp, dull crash. The door of the little sitting-room was thrown open, and Alba stood on the threshold, white as a ghost, her dark eyes gleaming. “It is the signal-gun, mother!” she cried. “There is a ship in distress!”
“How came you up and dressed, child?” exclaimed Virginie.
“Mother, I could not sleep; I have been watching the storm. Hark! there it is again. Why don’t they answer it? Let us hurry down to the beach.”
“Of what use would we be there, my child?” said Virginie. “Let us rather kneel down and pray that help may come.”
“I cannot pray; I cannot stay here safe and quiet while that gun is firing! Hark! there it is again. Oh! why don’t they make haste? Mother, I must go! If you won’t come I will go by myself.” Alba, as she spoke, threw back her head with the wild, free movement that Virginie knew, and knew that she could no more control than she could check the flight of a bird on the wing.
“I will go with you,” she cried, and, wrapping a cloak round Alba, she flung another round herself, and then lighted her lantern, and the two sallied forth into the storm, clinging fast to one another for support until they got under the shelter of the overhanging cliff. Lights were glancing here and there, hurrying down from the cottages, and a few fishermen were already on the beach watching the distressed ship, helpless and hopeless. Presently old Caboff appeared, holding his lantern high above his head—an aged, shrivelled man, likely to be of little use in this desperate strait; but such was the prestige which his supposed antecedents lent him in the eyes of the panic-stricken group that of one accord they turned to him as to the only one who might give help or counsel. The night was pitch dark, and the blinding rain and deafening roar of the breakers seemed to make the darkness thicker. It was impossible to see the ship, except when the flash of the gun lighted up the scene for a second. In the lull of the billows—that is, between the heavy sweep of their rise and fall—the cries of the crew and the whistle of the captain issuing his commands were faintly audible. How was it with the ship? Had she struck upon a rock, or was she simply going down before the storm? It was impossible to say. On finding that her signals were heard and her position seen from land, she slackened fire, and the gun only spoke every three minutes or so. In the interval of unbroken darkness all conjecture as to the immediate cause of the peril was at a stand-still. Caboff said she had struck upon a rock; the others thought she was simply disabled and rolling in the trough of the sea.
“Can we put out a boat? Who is for risking it?” said Caboff, pitching his voice to a whistle that was heard distinctly above the roar of the black breakers clamoring for the moon. There was no answer, but heads were shaken and hands gesticulated in strong dissent.
Alba pushed her way into the midst of the group. “What does it matter what the danger is? Go and help them!” she cried. “If you don’t help them they will all perish!”
“We cannot help them, little one,” said an old fisherman. “No boat could live in such a sea. See how the waves run up in mountains to our very feet, and think what it must be out yonder! See, now the signal-gun lights it up! Look! again it flashes.”
It was an appalling sight while the flashes lasted. The waves, rushing back, left the side of the ship visible, and then, returning with a tremendous sweep, broke over her and buried her out of sight in foam. The stoutest heart might well recoil from venturing to put out in such a sea.
“Naught but a miracle could do it,” said one of the oldest and hardiest of the fishermen; “and we none of us can work miracles.”
“God can!” cried Alba, and she looked like the spirit of the storm, her dark hair streaming, the light of courage and scorn and beseeching hope illuminating her face with an unearthly beauty—“God can, and he does for brave men; but ye are cowards!”
“Gently, little one; men will risk their lives to do some good, but it is suicide to rush on death where there is not a chance of saving any one.”
It was Caboff who spoke, and his words were followed by strong approval from the rest.
“Ye are cowards!” repeated Alba passionately. “God would work the miracle, if ye had courage and trusted him. See, there is the light now!” She pointed to the sky, where, as if to justify her promise, the moon came forth, and, scattering the darkness, shed her full blue radiance over sea and shore. The storm was now at its height. The guns had ceased to give tongue, and the crowd stood watching the scene in mute horror, while the reverberating shore shook under their feet at every shock of the furious billows.
Caboff was right. The ship had struck upon the Scissors, and, caught between the two blade-like rocks, was rapidly falling to pieces. The deck was deserted. The crew had either gone down into the cabin to meet their fate or they had been swept away by the devouring waters. One man alone was descried by Caboff’s keen eyes clinging to the broken mast. “I will risk it!” cried the old pirate, after watching the wreck for some minutes intently. “I will risk it; my old life may as well go out in saving his. Come, boys, help me to push down a boat. I must have three pairs of hands. Who is to the fore?”
A dozen men rushed forward; the boat was at the water’s edge in a moment, and after a short scuffle—for now all were fighting for precedence—three men got into it, and the others, putting their hands to the stern, launched it with their might. A cheer rang out from the shore; but close upon it came a cry, piercing and full of terror. It was Marcel Caboff, who was flying down the cliff, and reached the scene just as the boat put off.
“Father! father!” cried the lad, and he fell on his knees sobbing.
“Don’t be afraid, Marcel,” said Alba, falling on her knees beside him; “he is a brave man, and God will protect him!”
Something in the tone of the child’s voice made him turn and look at her, and as he caught sight of the beam of confidence, almost of exultation, on her face, he felt his courage rise and despair was silenced. But what meant that shout?
The boat was no sooner borne out on the receding wave than it went down into the sea as if never to rise again; there was a moment of breathless suspense, and then the wave rose and tossed it violently to and fro, and flung it back upon the shore. The men who had launched it were still upon the spot, and rushed forward to seize the boat and help the brave fellows out again. One was so stunned by the force of the shock that he became insensible and had to be lifted out. Old Caboff refused to stir.
“It is madness to try it again,” said his companions. “A cork could not live in such a sea!”
“I will risk no man’s life,” said Caboff. “I will go alone. Here, my men, lend a hand once more!”
There was a clamor of expostulation from all present; but the old man was not to be moved.
“I will go with you, father,” said Marcel, stepping in and seizing an oar.
“You here, lad! And your mother?”
“She sent me to look after you. Allons! mes amis; push us out and say God speed us!”
But there was now a third figure in the boat. “Now we are three, and God will make a fourth!” cried Alba; then, turning to the men, “Push us out,” she said, “and then go home, lest ye take cold here in the rain!”
“Good God! the child is mad,” cried Virginie, rushing forward to snatch her away. But it was too late; a heavy wave rolled in and made the boat heave suddenly, which the men seeing, with one impulse put their hands to it, till the breaker washed under it and swept it out to sea once more. Virginie stood there like one turned to stone, watching in dumb horror the boat drifting away on to the seething waters. Alba was on her knees, her arms outstretched, her face uplifted in the moonlight, transfigured into an apparition of celestial beauty—a heaven-sent messenger from Him who can unchain the storm and bid the winds and waves be still. The rough men, subdued by the sublimity of the scene, knelt down like little children and began to pray.
Gallantly the little boat rode on, now drowned out of sight, now rising lightly on the crest of the wave, while the sea, as if enraged at so much daring, redoubled in fury and pitched it to and fro like a ball. Old Caboff, grown young again, worked away like a sea-horse. Many a time had he and Death looked into each other’s faces, but never closer than now; and it was not the old seaman who quailed. Marcel, feeble Marcel, seemed endowed with the energy and strength of an athlete. They were now close upon the sinking ship; but the peril grew as they approached it. There was a lull for one moment, as if in very weariness the hurricane drew a breath; then a huge wave rose up like a mighty water-tower, oscillated for a moment like a house about to fall, and, dashing against the boat, swallowed it up in an avalanche of foam. Five seconds of mortal suspense followed; not a gasp broke the horrible silence on the beach. But the boat reappeared and rode bravely on to within a stone’s throw of the ship. The solitary man on deck was signalling to them with one hand, while with the other he clung to the mast. At last the little skiff was close under the bows. Old Caboff threw up a rope-ladder; it missed its aim, once, twice, three times. “How the old fellow is swearing! I can see it by his fury,” cried one of the fishermen, stamping in sympathetic rage. “Ha! the poor devil has caught it. Bravo! Hurrah! He is in the boat!”
Then there was a cheer, as if the very rocks had found a voice to applaud the brave ones who had conquered the storm. Wind and tide were with them as they returned, the waves pitching the boat before them like an angry boy kicking a stone, until one final plunge sent it flying on the beach.
“Vive Caboff! Vive Marcel! Vive la petite Alba!” And every hand was stretched out in welcome. Then there was a pause, a sudden hush, as when some strong emotion is checked by another.
“Monsieur le Marquis!”
“Yes, my friends, thanks to these brave hearts I am amongst you and alive.”
He was the first to step from the boat; then he took Alba in his arms and lifted her ashore into Virginie’s. Marcel alighted next, and was turning to assist his father when M. le Marquis pushed him gently aside and held out both hands to his deliverer. But the old man still grasped his oar and made no sign.
“Mon père!” cried Marcel, laying a hand on his arm, “mon père!”
But old Caboff did not answer him. He was dead.
The grande armée was still winning famous victories, ploughing up sunny harvest-fields with cannon-balls, and making homes and hearts desolate.
“There is one comfort,” said old Peltran, sitting moodily in his deserted bar: “when things come to the worst they must get better.”
“They’ve not come to the worst yet,” observed a neighbor. “There’s lots of things that might happen, that haven’t happened yet; the plague might come, or the blight, or the grande armée might get beaten. We’ve not come to the worst yet, believe you me.”
“There’s one thing anyhow that can’t happen,” said Peltran: “there can’t be another recruitment in Gondriac, for there isn’t a man left amongst us fit to shoulder a musket; we are all either too old, or lame, or blind of an eye.”
“There’s young Caboff is neither one nor the other. To be sure, he’s not the stuff to make a soldier out of; but when they’ve used up all the men they must make the best of the milk-sops.”
“Marcel is a widow’s only son; he’s safe,” said Peltran.
“From one day to another the last reserves may be called out,” observed the neighbor; “it will be hard on the mother, after two of her sons going for cannon’s meat. It was a plucky thing of the old father putting out that night. I wonder if he knew for certain who was on the deck of the ship.”
“If he didn’t he wouldn’t have been such an ass as to put out,” said Peltran. “Why should he fling away his bit of life for a stranger that he owed nothing to?”
“For the matter of that, he owed nothing to M. le Marquis; the Caboffs, they say, are rich enough to buy up every inch of land in Gondriac.”
“Folks may owe more than money can pay,” retorted Peltran. “M. le Marquis was very kind to the old man when his sons were killed, and, whatever Caboff’s sins may have been, he had a fine sense of his natural obligations. It didn’t surprise me much when I saw how handsomely he paid off his debt to M. le Marquis.”
“They say that monseigneur swore to Mme. Caboff that if ever she asked him a favor, whatever it was, he would grant it,” said the neighbor.
“Very likely,” remarked the host. “M. le Marquis has a grand-seigneur way of doing everything. I hope the Caboffs will have the delicacy never to abuse it.”
Not many days after this conversation Mme. Caboff was to be seen walking across the moor on her way to the castle. She looked an older woman than she was; sorrow had broken her down, and it would take little now to destroy the frail tenure of life that remained to her.
This was the first time she had ever entered the castle. Under other circumstances the visit would have thrown the widow into some trepidation. She would have been pleasantly fluttered at the prospect of an interview with the great lord in his own halls, and would have been much exercised on her way thither as to what she should say to him; but her mind was full of other cares to-day.
M. le Marquis was at home. He had spent the morning over a letter from Captain Hermann de Gondriac, which contained a graphic personal narrative of the retreat from Moscow of that disastrous expedition from which, out of the fifty thousand cavalry who went forth, only one hundred and twenty-five officers returned. A pang of anguish and patriotic indignation wrung the old nobleman’s heart as he read and re-read the terrible story, but tears of deep thankfulness fell from the father’s eyes at the thought that his son was spared and was returning safe and unhurt with that decimated army of starved, exasperated spectres. The marquis was perusing the letter for the tenth time when Mme. Caboff was announced. He rose to receive her with a warmth of welcome that boded well for her petition.
“M. le Marquis, you made me give you a promise once—that night; do you remember it?” she said, holding his white hand lightly between her two black-kidded ones, and looking up into his face with the meek and hungry look of a dog begging for a bone which may be refused and a kick given instead.
“Remember it? Yes,” replied the Marquis, returning the timid pressure with a cordial grasp. “You are in trouble; sit down, madame, and tell me what there is that I can do to make it lighter for you.”
“My son, my last and only son, Marcel, is called out, M. le Marquis!”
“And you want to find a substitute for him. It shall be done. I will set about it without an hour’s delay.”
“M. le Marquis, it cannot be done; there are no more substitutes to be had. I would give every penny I possess to get one, but there are none left. The widows’ only sons were the last spared, and now they must go. Marcel has been to the prefecture, and they told him there was no help for it: he must join the new levy to-morrow at X——M. le Marquis, have pity on me! It will kill me to let him go; and, oh! it is so dreadful to see the boy.”
“He is frightened at the prospect of going to battle?” There was an imperceptible ring of scorn under the courteous tone of the aristocrat as he put the question.
“He is mad with delight, M. le Marquis; he has always been wild to follow his brothers and be killed as they were.”
“Brave lad! But he shall not have his wish; he shall not be made food for Bonaparte’s cannon,” said the Marquis. “Go home in peace, madame, and break the bad news to him as tenderly as you can.”
“Thank God! God bless you, M. le Marquis!” said the widow fervently. “But is it indeed possible? I can hardly believe in so great a joy.”
M. le Marquis was silent for a moment, as if making a calculation; then he said musingly:
“The emperor is in Paris to-day; I will start in an hour from this and see him to-night. He owes me something. I never thought to have asked a favor at his hands; but I will stoop to ask him that your son be exempted from the service.”
“O M. le Marquis!” Mme. Caboff began to cry with joy; but remembering suddenly that this great emperor was conquering the whole world and turning kings in and out like valets—for Gondriac heard of his fine doings and was very proud of them—it occurred to her that he might by possibility refuse a request proffered even by so great a man as M. le Marquis. “You think his majesty is sure not to refuse you, monsieur?” she added timidly.
M. de Gondriac was too well cased in his armor of pride to be touched by the poor woman’s unconscious insult; he smiled and replied with a quiet irony that escaped his visitor: “I think that is very unlikely, Mme. Caboff. Be at rest,” he continued kindly. “I pledge you my word that your son shall not be taken from you. Instead of going to-morrow to X——, he had better start off at once with a letter which I will give him to the prefect.”
He wrote the letter and handed it to Mme. Caboff.
It was late that evening when M. de Gondriac arrived in Paris. He drove straight to the Tuileries. Time was precious, and he had travelled in court dress, so as not to lose an hour at the end of the journey. It did not occur to him that there could be any delay in reaching the presence of the emperor. Petitioners of his class were not so common at the great man’s door that it should close upon them because of some informal haste in their demand for admittance. He handed in his card and asked to see the lord chamberlain. After some delay he was shown into the presence of that high functionary, to whom he stated his desire for an immediate audience of his majesty. The lord chamberlain smilingly informed him that this was impossible; mortals were not admitted into the august presence in this abrupt manner; but he—the lord chamberlain—would present the request at his earliest opportunity to-morrow, and communicate in due time with M. le Marquis.
“Things do not proceed so summarily at court,” he added graciously. The marquis felt his blood boil. This mushroom duke telling a De Gondriac how things were done at court!
“I know enough of courts to be aware that on occasions etiquette must yield to weightier reasons,” he replied. “Oblige me, M. le Duc, by taking my message at once to the emperor.”
There was something in his tone which compelled the obsequious courtier to obey. He withdrew, and returned presently with a face full of amazed admiration to announce to the visitor that his majesty was willing to receive him.
The emperor was standing with his hands behind his back in the embrasure of a window when M. de Gondriac entered. He did not turn round at once, but waited until the door closed, and then, walking up to M. de Gondriac, he said brusquely: “I have invited you many times, marquis, and you have never come. What brings you here to-night?” The speech was curt, but not insolent; it did not even sound uncivil.
“Sire, I am an old man, and it is so long since I have been at court that I have forgotten how to behave myself. My lord chamberlain was deeply shocked, I could perceive, at my breach of ceremony in coming to the palace in this abrupt way without going through the usual observances. My motive will, I hope, excuse me to your majesty.”
“Yes, yes, I will let you off easier than Bassano,” said the emperor. “But what do you want of me?” He had his hands still behind his back, and, without desiring his visitor to be seated, he turned to pace up and down the room.
“I have come to ask a favor of your majesty.”
“Ha! that is well. I am glad of that. Do you know, that boy of yours has behaved admirably,” he said, facing round and looking at the marquis.
“We are accustomed to fight, sire,” replied M. de Gondriac. “It came naturally to my son; he had, moreover, the advantage of drawing his maiden sword under a great captain.”
“I mean to keep him by me. I have appointed him on my own staff. We are not done with war. I am raising troops for a campaign in the spring.”
“Sire, I am aware of it; it is precisely about that that I have come to speak to your majesty. There is in my village a widow whose two sons have fallen in the service of the country; there remains to her one more son, a lad of nineteen....”
“And she is ambitious that he should share the glorious fate of his brothers; that is natural,” broke in the emperor.
“Sire, she is a widow, and this boy is all she has in the world. It is no longer possible to procure a substitute; therefore I come to crave at your hands his exemption from the service.”
“What! you would rob France of a soldier, when they are so scarce that gold cannot buy one? Is this your notion of duty to your country, M. de Gondriac? Is it thus you aristocrats understand patriotism?” The emperor confronted him with a flashing eye.
“My son has answered that question, sire.”
“Tut! And because, forsooth, your son has done his duty, you would have other men’s sons betray theirs! A peasant makes as good a soldier as a peer, let me tell you. Because your son condescended to share the glory of the grande armée you expect me to make you a present of a strong young soldier! I do not understand such sentimental logic.”
“Neither do I, sire. I was not putting forward the services of my son as a claim for this poor lad, but those of his two brothers who lost their lives, one at Wagram, the other at Friedland.”
“What better could have befallen them?”
“Nothing, in my estimation; but their mother....”
“France is their mother; she claims their allegiance and their life before any one. The man who puts his mother before his country is a fool or a coward!”
“This young man has not asked to be exempted; his mother came and besought me to have him spared to her, and, counting on your gratitude and generosity, sire, I have come to lay her petition at your feet. The boy himself is frantic to be off and die like his brothers.”
“Then he shall have his wish and France shall count one more hero. Tell his mother she shall have a pension. Give me her name, and it shall be done at once.”
“She is not in want of it, sire; she has wealth enough to buy a score of men, if they were to be had.”
“But they are not, and so her son must go.”
“This is your last word, sire?”
“Yes, marquis, my last.”
“Then I have only to crave your majesty’s forgiveness for my intrusion.” M. de Gondriac bowed and was moving towards the door, when the emperor called out:
“Stay a moment. What motive have you in pleading this widow’s cause so strongly?”
The marquis in a few words told the story of that memorable night when Caboff saved him at the cost of his own life. The emperor listened to the end without interrupting him; then he resumed his walk, and, speaking from the other end of the room, “You are naturally anxious to pay back so heavy a debt,” he said. “Would this feeling carry you the length of making some sacrifice?”
How could Bonaparte ask the question? Did not M. de Gondriac’s presence here to-night answer it exhaustively?
“I think I have proved that, sire,” he answered coldly.
The emperor was silent for a while; then, turning round, he looked fixedly at the marquis and said:
“I withdraw my unconditional refusal. I will let you know to-morrow on what terms I consent to exempt the son of your deliverer from dying on the field of battle.”
M. de Gondriac bowed low. “I have the honor to salute your majesty.”
“Au revoir, marquis.”
What did he mean, and what was this condition so mysteriously hinted at, and only to be declared after the night’s preparation?
M. de Gondriac was sitting over his breakfast next morning when an estafette rode up to his old hôtel, bearing a large official envelope stamped with the imperial arms and the talismanic words, “Maison de l’Empereur.” M. le Marquis broke the seal and ran his eye down the large sheet, and then tossed it from him with an exclamation of anger and contempt.
“Enter his service! Play lackey at the court of an upstart who is drenching my country in blood from sheer vanity and ambition—a usurper who is keeping my liege sovereign in exile, and the best part of my kindred in idleness, or else in a servitude more humiliating than the dreariest inactivity! A De Gondriac tricked out in the livery of a mountebank king like him! Ha! ha! M. de Bonaparte, when you give that spectacle to the gods, ... je vous en fais mon compliment!”
M. le Marquis laughed a low, musical laugh as he muttered these reflections to himself. But presently he ceased laughing and his face took a dark and troubled look. The emperor made his acceptance of this offer the price of Marcel Caboff’s exemption. If he rejected it, the lad must join. “Would gratitude carry you the length of a sacrifice?” When the question had been put to him, it seemed to M. de Gondriac that he had forestalled it; but the emperor evidently did not think so, and now he was putting him to the test. It was the severest he could have chosen. When Hermann de Gondriac took service under Bonaparte, the old nobleman considered his son was making a fine sacrifice of personal pride to patriotism; but the service here, at least, was a noble one, and rendered to France rather than to the upstart who had captured her. But this other was of a totally different order. Even in the bygone days, when France had a legitimate king and real court, the De Gondriacs had been shy of taking office in the royal household, preferring the service of the camp, diplomacy abroad, or statesmanship at home; to stoop now to be a courtier to Bonaparte was a degradation not to be calmly contemplated. If the tyrant had asked any sacrifice but this, M. le Marquis said to himself, he would have made it gladly; but this was impossible. It meant the surrender of his self-respect, of those principles whose integrity he had hitherto proudly maintained at no small personal risk and cost. Before he had finished his coffee, the question was settled, and he rose to write his answer.
Trifles sometimes affect us with the force of great repellant causes. The act of taking the pen in his hand brought before him vividly the last time he had held it: it was in his library at Gondriac; the widow sat watching him with a swelling heart, made glad by his promise solemnly given: “I pledge you my word that your son shall not be taken from you.” M. le Marquis laid down his pen and fell to thinking. “No, I can’t do it,” he said after a long pause. “I can’t belie the traditions of my race; I can’t stain the old name and turn saltimbanque in my old age.” He took up the pen and wrote to the emperor, declining his offer.
The next day the town of X—— was full of excitement. The new recruits were pouring in, sometimes in boisterous crowds, singing and hurrahing, sometimes in sober knots of twos and threes, sometimes singly, accompanied by weeping relatives, mostly women. There had been an official attempt to get up a show of warlike enthusiasm, but it had failed; people were growing sick of the glories of war, sick of sending sons and brothers and husbands to be massacred for Bonaparte’s good pleasure. The recruits were called out by name, and answered sullenly as they passed through the Mairie out to the market-place, where the sergeant was waiting to give them their first lesson in drill, showing them how to stand straight and get into position.
“Marcel Caboff!” called out the recruiting agent.
“Remplacé!”
“By whom?”
“Rudolf, Marquis de Gondriac!”
TO BE CONTINUED.