On page 243:—'That million and a half of men, women, and children were carefully, prudently, and peacefully slain' [the italics are those of Mitchel] 'by the English Government. They died of hunger in the midst of abundance which their own hands created; and it is quite immaterial to distinguish those who perished in the agonies of famine itself from those who died by typhus fever, which in Ireland is always caused by famine.
'Further, this was strictly an artificial famine—that is to say, it was a famine which desolated a rich and fertile island that produced every year abundance and superabundance to sustain all her people and many more. The English, indeed, call that famine a dispensation of Providence, and ascribe it entirely to the blight of the potatoes. But potatoes failed in like manner all over Europe, yet there was no famine save in Ireland. The British account of the matter, then, is first a fraud; second, a blasphemy. The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the famine.'
Such pestilential perversion of truth is freely circulated and firmly believed, for contradiction never penetrates to those gulled by these lies. In America the gutter press section of journalism is esteemed at its true worth, and is as harmless as a few squibs. In Ireland what is seen in bad print is always believed, and is corroborated by the lower class of priest. When I say so much I am simply indicating a national sore, but it needs a wiser physician than myself to apply a successful remedy.
Perhaps with the spread of education may arise the same power to discriminate between the true and false published in the papers that is a characteristic of both the English and Scottish. As it is, the Irishman believes whatever he reads in print; and in most cases the solitary paper that he reads is one full of treason and untruths.
When the famine took place, the Irish fled as from a plague to America, and when they landed there both men and women were the prey of every blackguard without a single person to advise or protect them.
Had the Government taken the movement in hand and employed agents at New York to provide for them until they obtained employment, and to direct them where to apply for it, England would to-day probably have had a grateful nation on the other side of the Atlantic. Instead, we have a hostile multitude which neglects no opportunity of voting for any politician hostile to Great Britain; and this disaffection sadly militates against that union of Anglo-Saxon hearts, which is so freely accepted by journalists and politicians as a sort of millennium.
Miss Cobbe related a story about a steady-going girl who had received money from her sister who was doing well in New York to pay her passage money out.
She told Miss Cobbe how she had been to an emigration office and booked her passage.
'Direct to New York, of course.'
'Well no, Miss. But to some place close by, New something else.'