of passengers received to satisfy the greed of the ship-owner, so long as deck-room could be found; and all were expected to supply their own provisions. All, as a rule, were in the prime of life but there were very few whose vitality had not been already seriously impaired by the Famine before sailing. Through ignorance and often from want of means, the supply of provisions laid in for the voyage was deficient in quantity and lacking in quality. The result was that in a few weeks, if typhus fever had not been contracted before sailing, the supply of food would become exhausted before even half the voyage had been accomplished. For the remainder of the voyage a very limited quantity from the ship's stores would be doled out with a grudging hand. The article generally furnished was meal, from ground Indian corn, which was always more or less damaged and, with inadequate if not absence of facility for cooking, together with a scanty supply even of good water, the victims soon suffered from dysentery as a preparatory stage for typhus, a disease also known as "ship-fever." With persistent seasickness, the herding together of the sexes as so many cattle, with no privacy nor means for making any attempt at cleanliness of either person or surroundings, it naturally followed that gradually the immunities of civilized life were lost; so, long before reaching port, the hopeless condition of the survivors became one of extreme imbecility of both mind and body.

The early emigrant ship was not always sea-worthy and generally could be used in no other trade. Through the penurious practice of the owners they were never properly equipped and always short-handed and relied upon such aid as the male passenger might give. Consequently these ✓ vessels were frequently from 150 to 160 days making the voyage and often after sighting land they would be driven back by adverse winds nearly across the Atlantic again. No emigrant ship then carried a physician and there was no help for those who were stricken down with fever; all were too sick or indifferent to give much care to others.

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The mortality, therefore, was great and the writer can recall hearing of several instances where one-half of the passengers had died and been thrown overboard before the voyage was concluded. The most pitiful circumstance and one that happened not infrequently was the death of all the adults of a family, leaving a child too young even to know. As young children did not seem to suffer much from fever, many instances occurred where every other member of a family died on the voyage and the child remaining could never be identified.

It was not in the line of duty of the writer to board on arrival an Irish ship but the fever wards were under his care and it was his duty to take charge of these cases as soon as they could be carried to the Hospital. It was seldom that any passengers, male or female, on these early ships could obtain privacy enough to change their undergarments from the beginning to the end of the voyage and gradually they grew sick and indifferent and would be brought ashore weeks afterward unconscious from the fever, starved and in a grievously filthy condition. From the boarding officers the writer has received most graphic accounts of the conditions found. Often for a month or more before the arrival of an immigrant ship the suffering was great from want of a sufficient supply of food and fresh water, as has been said; consequently at the time of coming into port the proportion of sick immigrants and sailors would be greater than at any other time during the voyage. Generally on arrival all remained below in a helpless condition, as many had been for days without the slightest care. On opening all the hatches the health officer was frequently compelled to have the fire-engine pump started that, by means of a stream of water, the deadly atmosphere between decks, like that in a coal pit, might be sufficiently purified to render comparatively safe the undertaking of moving those below.

In the foulest stench that can be conceived of, as soon as the eyes had become accustomed to the darkness prevailing

everywhere but under the open hatch, a mass of humanity, men, women, and children, would be seen lying over each other about the floor, often half naked, many covered with sores and all with filth and vermin to an incredible degree; the greater portion stupefied or in a delirious condition from typhus, or putrid, fever, cholera, and smallpox; all were helpless and among them were often found bodies of the dead in a more or less advanced stage of decomposition. Such a sight would surely prompt any being, above the brute, to call aloud to the Great God for vengeance upon those who rendered possible in any country a condition so destructive of life that the people in their flight would prefer even such an alternative as this!

The writer from his earliest childhood had been familiar with the woes of the Irish people but the impression their suffering made upon him in early manhood, from his personal knowledge, has not faded but become the more intensified after the passage of some fifty years-and so it will remain until death! How many millions are there, of Irish birth or of Irish descent, scattered over the world, who hold the same feeling of bitterness and, if not checked, will not this influence ultimately bear bitter fruit for England?

It is beyond the charity of human nature that those who know the truth should make one single allowance for the great crime which has been perpetrated against Ireland during the past three hundred years at least. No people have ever suffered greater martyrdom than the Irish Catholics, from hatred fostered by religious bigotry and from wilful neglect by England of the duty encumbent upon responsibility. Of the many millions of Irish people who have lost their lives from the sword, from starvation or from forced emigration, since England became responsible for the welfare of the country, scarcely a single life was lost which could not have been saved.

If we accept anything in Christianity we must believe in the final Judgment and that in the justice of Almighty God each shall be judged; consequently we must believe in

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adequate punishment. Nations have been punished as such, even though it may seem unjust that individuals who are innocent should suffer for the crimes committed by those 'who constitute the Government. And on the great day of Judgment, if not before, justice will certainly be meted out and it is beyond the scope of human intellect to realize the extent of punishment which must be the portion of all who shall then be proved unjust stewards in their management of Irish affairs!

It would be inconsistent with the truth were we to attribute the piteous condition of Ireland to any other cause than that the great majority of the Irish people belong to the Catholic faith. Had the Irish been willing to cast aside, for temporal benefit, the faith which they have unflinchingly maintained for over twelve centuries, their country would have received every aid to advance prosperity which would, with their greater advantages of soil and climate, have been far greater than that attained by Scotland.

CHAPTER XX

ENGLISH GOVERNMENT RESPONSIBLE FOR LOSS OF LIFE IN IRELAND-EXTERMINATION OF THE CATHOLICS CONSIDERED-CATHOLICS HAVE SUFFERED EVEN TO THE PRESENT DAY FROM UNJUST DISCRIMINATION

WE have shown that it was beyond human effort, so far as the English could exercise it, to accomplish extermination by the sword. But as pestilence and famine, the direct concomitants of wilful misrule and forced emigration, did the work year after year most effectually, the English authorities were too well satisfied with the result to interfere; by masterly inaction they have striven to "help on the good cause.'

An effort to exterminate the Irish Catholics was certainly made as early as the reign of Queen Elizabeth and we have shown that it was openly advocated and practised long after that time.

The Lord Deputy of Ireland at the beginning of the seventeenth century stated in his official report the following:

"I have often said and written, it is the famine that must consume the Irish, as our swords and other endeavors worked not that speedy effect which is expected. Hunger would be better, because a speedier weapon to employ against them than the sword.'''

'The views expressed above were probably due to the failure of the plan of government formulated by Perrot a short time before, in which he amply provided for the destruction of all the people of Ireland who were found to be not in sympathy with England: "That all Brehons, Carraghes, Bardes and