'New something else near New York?'
'Yes; I disremember what it was, but he said it was quite handy for New York.'
'Not New Orleans, surely?'
'Yes, Miss, that was it, New Orleans, quite near New York,' he said.
The scoundrelly agent had taken her passage money and sent her off absolutely friendless to New Orleans, where she died of a fever in less than a year.
Many of the three million emigrants after the famine must have been as easily duped.
A considerable time ago (but if I were in Kerry I could give the date from my diary, because I met the man at a dinner given at the St. James's Club by Lord Kenmare's son-in-law, Mr. Douglas) one of the big New World railway companies sent over an emissary to the British Government.
He was charged to offer to take every distressed man in Ireland, with his priest—if he would go—piper, cat, wife, sister, mother, and children, to the land through which the great railway ran. Each man was to be given a log-house with three rooms, one hundred and sixty acres, ten of them under cultivation, and no residence was to be more than ten miles from a railway station. All that was asked in return was a loan for ten years without interest to cover the expenses of transportation.
I rather think Mr. Chichester Fortescue was the Chief Secretary. Anyhow, whoever occupied that post urged the Cabinet to accept the offer. The conclave wavered, but Mr. Gladstone firmly vetoed the idea. He was afraid the plan would be unpopular with the priests, who would see themselves bereft of the favourite members of their congregations.
Instead of this admirable scheme, we have ever since had the pitiable sight of the parents, the sisters, and the sweetheart crooning over the emigration of the best able-bodied young men from Ireland.