The census of 1841 shows the population of Ireland to have been in that year 8,175,124. Taking the usual ratio of births over deaths, it should have increased in 1851 to 9,018,799, instead of which it fell to 6,552,385; thus, being nearly two millions and a-half less than it should have been. These two millions and a-half disappeared in the Famine. They disappeared by death and emigration. The emigration during the ten years from 1842 to 1851, both inclusive, was 1,436,862. Subtracting this from the amount of decrease in the population, namely, 2,476,414, the remainder will be 1,039,552; which number of persons must have died of starvation and its concomitant epidemics; but even this number, great as it is, must be supplemented by the deaths which occurred among Famine emigrants, in excess of the percentage of deaths among ordinary emigrants.
During the Famine-emigration period this excess became most remarkable and alarming. The deaths on the voyage to Canada rose from five in the thousand (the ordinary rate) to about sixty in the thousand; and the deaths whilst the ships were in quarantine rose from one to forty in the thousand. So that instead of six emigrants in the thousand dying on the voyage and during quarantine, one hundred died. Subtracting six from one hundred, we have ninety-four emigrants in the thousand dying of the Famine as certainly as if they had died at home. Furthermore, great numbers of those who were able to reach the interior died off almost immediately. Sir Charles Trevelyan, the Government official, from whose Irish Crisis I take the above figures, adds these remarkable words: "besides still larger numbers who died at Quebec, Montreal, and elsewhere in the interior."[291]
89,738 emigrants embarked for Canada in 1847. One in every three of those who arrived were received into hospital, and the deaths on the passage or soon after arriving were 15,330, or rather more than seventeen per cent. As the deaths amongst emigrants, in ordinary times, were about ¾ per cent., at least sixteen per cent. of those deaths may be set down as being occasioned by the Famine. But seventeen per cent., high as it seems, does not fully represent the mortality amongst the Famine emigrants. Speaking of those who went to Canada in 1847, Dr. Stratten says: "Up to the 1st of November, one emigrant in every seven had died; and during November and December there have been many deaths in the different emigrant hospitals; so that it is understating the mortality to say that one person in every five was dead by the end of the year."[292]
This would give us twenty per cent. of deaths up to the end of 1847; but the mortality consequent upon the Famine-emigration did not stop short at the end of December; it must have gone on through the remainder of the winter and spring, so that, everything considered, twenty-five per cent. does not seem too high a rate at which to fix it for that year. It is, however, to be taken into account, that the mortality amongst Irish emigrants in 1847 was exceptionally great, so, in an average for the six years from 1846 to 1851 we must strike below it. Seventeen per cent does not seem too high an average for those six years.
We have not such full information about those who emigrated to the United States as we have of those who went to Canada; the Canadian emigrants had certainly some advantages on their side; for, until the year 1847 there was no protection for emigrants who landed at New York. In that year the Legislature of the State of New York passed a law, establishing a permanent Commission for the relief and protection of emigrants, which, in due time, when it got into working order, did a world of good. Previous to this, private hospitals were established by the shipbrokers (the creatures of the shipowners), in the neighbourhood of New York. A Committee appointed by the Aldermen of New York in 1846 visited one of those institutions, and thus reported upon it: "The Committee discovered in one apartment, 50 feet square, 100 sick and dying emigrants lying on straw; and among them, in their midst, the bodies of two who had died four or five days before, but who had been left for that time without burial! They found in the course of their inquiry that decayed vegetables, bad flour, and putrid meat, were specially purchased and provided for the use of the strangers! Such as had strength to escape from these slaughter-houses fled from them as from a plague, and roamed through the city, exciting the compassion—perhaps the horror—of the passers by. Those who were too ill to escape had to take their chance—such chance as poisonous food, infected air, and bad treatment afforded them of ultimate recovery."[293]
It may be fairly assumed that the mortality amongst the emigrants who went to the United States was at least as great as amongst those who went to British America. The emigration from Ireland for the above six years was, as already stated, 1,180,409, seventeen per cent. of whom will give us 200,668, which, being added to 1,039,552, the calculated number of deaths at home, we have ONE MILLION, TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY THOUSAND DEATHS resulting directly from the Irish Famine, and the pestilence which followed in its track.
The mortality on board some of the emigrant ships was terrible; and, whatever the cause, the deaths in British ships enormously exceeded those in the ships of any other country.[294] The "Erin Queen" sailed with 493 passengers, of whom 136 died on the voyage. The scenes of misery on board of this vessel could hardly have been surpassed in a crowded and sickly slaver on the African coast. It appears, writes Dr. Stratten, that the "Avon," in 552 passengers, had 246 deaths; and the "Virginius," in 476, had 267 deaths.[295] An English gentleman, referring to a portion of Connaught in which he was stationed at the time, writes thus: "Hundreds, it is said, had been compelled to emigrate by ill-usage, and in one vessel containing 600 not one hundred survived!"[296]
Much sympathy was shown in Canada for the poor emigrants, and their orphans were, to a great extent, adopted by charitable families. The legislature of the State of New York, and many of its leading citizens, showed a laudable desire to aid and protect emigrants, in spite of which the most cruel and heartless villainies were practised upon the inexperienced strangers the moment they landed; in fact, before they landed the ship was surrounded by harpies, who seized their luggage and partly by violence, partly by wheedling and misrepresentation, led them where they pleased, and plundered then at will.
The legislature of the State of New York, in 1847, appointed a Committee to inquire into the frauds practised upon emigrants. It made its report in January 1848. In the fourth page of that Report these words occur: "Your Committee must confess, that they had no conception of, nor would they have believed the extent to which these frauds and outrages have been practised, until they came to investigate them." The first set of robbers into whose hands the emigrants fell were called "runners." They are described in the Report as a class who boarded the emigrant ship and brought the emigrants to their special lodging-houses in spite of them, and in spite of the authorities. They took charge of their luggage, pretending that nothing would be demanded for the storage of it, the price claimed for which afterwards was exorbitant, and the luggage was held until it was paid.
The frauds committed with regard to passage tickets were if possible more grievous than those practised by the runners. "The emigrant," says the Report, buys a ticket at an exorbitant price, with a picture on it representing a steam-boat, railway cars, and a canal packet drawn by three prancing horses, to bring him to some place beyond Albany. He gets a steam-boat ticket to Albany. Here his great ticket, with the pictures, is protested; he has to pay once more, and instead of railroad cars and a packet-boat, he is thrust into the steerage or hold of a line boat, which amongst other conveniences is furnished with false scales for weighing his luggage.