Mantua House
Roscommon
I was told later that there is much trouble around Cashel, but personally I saw no signs of it save in Roscommon. Elsewhere it is very easy to disbelieve the reports, for surely in no part of the world are the prospects more entrancing to the traveller—on the surface at least—than in this island with its lovely lakes, its beautiful mountains and seas, its picturesque people, and above all its luxuriant vegetation. Every old tower is shrouded in ivy, and the grass is soft as velvet, showing the richness of the soil, and is beautiful beyond description. With all their sorrow and tears these people appear full of sunshine and laughter, and if you smile at them you are always greeted pleasantly, while you find them at all times full of jests and quaint humour which keep you in a constant state of laughter. The other day I gave a man a sixpence as a tip. Being possessed of true politeness, he would not directly reflect upon my generosity, or the lack thereof, but gravely regarding the coin a moment, and scratching his head the while in a meditative fashion, he exclaimed, "Bad luck to the Boer war which blew the two shillings away and left the sixpence."
It is almost impossible to change the habits and customs inborn in these peasants, no matter how many years may be passed in foreign lands. It is a well-known fact that girls that have lived in cleanly, pleasant homes in America, with all which that means, on returning here, as they often do, and marrying some Irish lad, soon sink to the level from which they had raised themselves by emigrating. Their savings all gone to buy the hut from their husband's brothers and sisters and poor as when they left Ireland, they are soon seen standing barefooted in the manure and filth, pitching it into a wretched cart, drawn by a most wretched looking donkey, all their good clothes and dainty habits a thing of the past and I doubt if greatly regretted.
Occasionally, however, the reverse holds true. A lady not long since came over bringing her Irish maid with her, and on reaching Queenstown told the girl that she could, if she desired, go home for a visit and rejoin her mistress later in Dublin. The girl went, but before the mistress reached Dublin the telegraph wires were laden with messages from the maid, so fearful was she that the mistress would leave her, and when she rejoined her remarked with a gasp, "but ma'am, I did not know it was like that; why the pig slept in the room wid us." But there are not many who mind the pig and a girl returned and married here will cuff her children, dirty with dirt which would have sickened her while in her American home, out of the way of the "gentleman who pays the rent."
As for the emigration of these or any other peoples to our country, if they who come are honest and willing to work, they will find no difficulty in obtaining plenty of employment, provided they go where it is and do not expect it to be ready to their hand on landing. Most who get into trouble and, returning home, tell woful tales about impositions, etc., are those who insist upon remaining in the congested districts of the East. The whole South and great West, from St. Louis to the Pacific, and from Canada to Mexico, is open to them, a vast empire, where all may live if they will work and where there is room for all who come. The systems of irrigation in action and proposed by our government, in the west, are reclaiming a vast empire yet to be peopled, while in the South labour brings high figures and is difficult to obtain, especially in our great cotton mills in South Carolina and Georgia and in the lumber mills of Florida.
But thousands who come to us have no intention of working and insist upon remaining around and in our crowded cities and districts where the devil soon finds plenty of employment for their idle hands, and his arch agents—ward politicians—lend him most efficient assistance. I know that only last winter one of the owners of a great lumber mill in Florida, at his own expense, brought from the immigrant bureau in New York a large number of men who no sooner got to Florida than they ran off and became tramps, having from the start no intention of working.
That there is much truth in The Jungle and other books of like sort is beyond doubt, but there is no necessity for any man, woman, or child's remaining in such places unless he so desires. Most of them having lived in abject poverty and wretchedness at home, continue, by nature, to do so abroad, and will never change, and such as these by their very habits contribute largely to the state of affairs described in that book. The hope lies in the future, not for them, but for their children, who certainly will change. Such change is difficult if not impossible after man's estate is reached, not only with the poor but also with the well-to-do and rich.