The Irish Race in the Past and the Present

by Augustus J. Thébaud

On the other hand, when Mr. Mayhew speaks of the street Irish in London, he is most emphatic in his praise of the purity of the women in particular, and the care of the parents in general to preserve the virtue of their daughters, in the midst of the frightful corruption ever under their eyes. The only remark he passes of a disparaging character is the following:

"I may here observe"—referring to the statement that Irish parents will not expose their daughters to the risk of what they consider corrupt influences—"that, when a young Irish woman does break through the pale of chastity, she often becomes, as I was assured, one of the most violent and depraved of, perhaps, the most depraved class."

It is evident, from the mere form in which this phrase is put, that such a thing is of very rare occurrence, and that the violence and depravity spoken of offer all the stronger contrast to the general purity of the whole class, and are merely the result of the open and unreserved character of the race.

But the whole world knows that chastity is the rule, and perhaps the most special virtue of the Irish, a fact which their worst enemies have been compelled to confess. In this same work of Mr. Mayhew's a still more surprising fact than the last—for that is acknowledged by all—is brought into astonishing prominence; a fact opposed to the general opinion of their friends even, and yet supported by incontrovertible evidence. It relates to another contrast between the English and Irish costermongers on the score of temperance.

III. The result arrived at by his inquiries among liquor-dealers in that part of London inhabited by about equal numbers of both nationalities, Mr. Mayhew gives us as twenty to one in favor of the Irish with respect to the consumption of liquor. In most "independent," that is to say, "not impoverished" Irish families, water is the only beverage at dinner, with punch afterward; and estimating the number of teetotallers, among the English at three hundred, there are six hundred among the Irish, who constitute, it may be remembered, only one-third of the whole costermonger class, and those Irish teetotallers, having taken the pledge under the sanction of their priests, look upon it as a religious observance and keep it rigidly. The number of Irish teetotallers has been considerably increased since Mr. Mayhew made his returns, in consequence of the energetic crusade entered upon against drink by the zealous London clergy, under the powerful lead of Archbishop Manning.

It is true that an innkeeper told Mr. Mayhew that "he would rather have twenty poor Englishmen drunk in his tap-room than a couple of poor Irishmen, who will quarrel with anybody, and sometimes clear the room." But this remark, if it shows any thing, shows only how and why the Irish have obtained that reputation of being a nation of drunkards, which is slanderous and false.

IV. Yet another, and perhaps as surprising a result as any, is the contrast between both classes of people with respect to economy and foresight: The English street-sellers are found everywhere spending all their income in the satisfaction often of brutish appetites; the Irish, on the contrary, save their money, either for the purpose of transmitting it to their poor relatives in Ireland, or bringing up their children properly, or- -if they are young—to provide for their marriage-expenses and home. Such cares as these never seem to afflict the English costermonger. So strongly did Mr. Mayhew find these characteristics marked among the Irish, that he is at times inclined to accuse them of carrying them too far, even to the display of a sordid and parsimonious spirit. According to him, they apply to the various "unions," or to the parish, even when they have money, or sometimes go with wretched food, dwelling, or clothing, in order to have a small fund laid by, in case of any emergency arising.

But the general result of his observations is clear: that the Irish are most provident and far-seeing; a surprising statement, doubtless, to the generality of Mr. Mayhew's readers, but one which, after all, only accords with the testimony of many unexceptionable witnesses of their life in other countries. And, if in England, in London especially, they at times appear sordid in their economy, is not this the very natural result of the misery they had previously endured in their own impoverished land, and therefore a proof that, at least, they have profited by the terrible ordeals through which they were compelled to pass?

We have spoken only of the Irish in London; the same facts are most probably true of them in all the large cities of Great Britain. Unfortunately, Mr. Mayhew's most interesting work has found no imitators in other parts of the kingdom. F. Perraud's remarks, however, in his "Ireland under English Rule," extend almost over the whole country.

After giving his own experience, and that of many others whom he had consulted, or whose works he had read; after having set forth the dangers which beset the Irish in that (to them) "most foreign country"—England—and also the success which had attended the labors of many proselytizing agents among them, and even in some cases the progress of immorality in their midst resulting from the innumerable seductions to which they were exposed, a success and a progress which Mr. Mayhew's personal observation would lead us to think the good father has exaggerated, he concludes as follows: