Page:Irish In America.djvu/32

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10
THE IRISH IN AMERICA.

in the old country. No matter how a man starts, though without a cent in his pocket, he can make money here, provided he is well-conducted, and does not drink.' Happily, however, the number of the victims was but small.

My visits to the Catholic schools, which, as is the rule throughout America, are conducted by members of religious communities, were attended with much interest, and left upon my mind the deepest impression, not so much of the excellence of the teaching, for of that I had no doubt whatever, but of the substantial prosperity of the town, and the solid comfort enjoyed by the least wealthy portion of its inhabitants—its working population. I went through the schools conducted by the Christian Brothers, whose system of teaching and discipline is in all respects identical with that so well known in those cities of the old country which are blessed by their presence; my desire being merely to see the children, how they looked, and in what manner they were clad. Nor was my surprise less great than agreeable at the spectacle which I beheld. It was heightened by the force of contrast; as but a few days before I left Ireland I had, with others, accompanied certain distinguished Englishmen to the schools of the Christian Brothers of my own city, and the remembrance of what I there witnessed was strong and vivid. There—in Cork—there was much to gratify, much even to astonish, but there was also too much to sadden and depress. The boys bright, quick, intelligent, exhibiting in every Department extraordinary proficiency, to such a degree indeed as to excite the openly-expressed amazement of the strangers; but too many of them exhibited the unmistakable evidence of intense poverty, not only in their scanty raiment but in their pale and anxious faces. What a contrast to this—in this one respect only—was presented by the schools of the Brothers in Halifax! Not a single sign or indication of poverty, not a trace of want, hot a tattered coat or trowers, not a rent, not a patch—on the contrary,