| Title: | Things as They Are in The United States. |
|---|---|
| ID | 3967 |
| Collection | Irish Emigration Database |
| File | 1851-60/22 |
| Year | 1857 |
| Sender | unknown |
| Sender Gender | unknown |
| Sender Occupation | unknown |
| Sender Religion | unknown |
| Origin | Albany, New York, USA |
| Destination | Ireland |
| Recipient | unknown |
| Recipient Gender | unknown |
| Relationship | re emigration |
| Source | The Armagh Guardian, Friday, July 3, 1857. |
| Archive | The Central Library, Belfast. |
| Doc. No. | 9410498 |
| Date | 03/07/1857 |
| Partial Date | |
| Doc. Type | EMG |
| Log | Document added by LT/JW, 24:10:1994. |
| Word Count | 1583 |
| Genre | |
| Note | |
| Transcript | THINGS AS THEY ARE IN THE UNITED STATES. We earnestly recommend the following article to the careful perusal of those of our readers who are bit by the emigration mania. It is extracted from an admirably conducted agriculture and family paper, styled " The Country Gentleman ", published at Albany, N.Y., and the statements contained in it are, therefore, doubly entitled to due consideration. We, too, have thousands of " productive acres " which " are left behind , abandoned and uncared for; " and we are decidedly of the opinion that everyone should think twice ere they abandon " ould Ireland " for any foreign land. BETTER STAY AT HOME. We recollect of no time when such an universal stampede of men of all professions and pursuits to the Western States has been made as the present spring. The stampede has been going on these three years, for that matter, but the present appears to be its culminating period. A land and a speculative furore has apparently taken possession of every man who has a dollar of money in his pocket, or the credit wherewith to get it. Old, middle-aged, and young, it is all the same, one universal rush to the West to engage in land purchases and speculations. The calamities of twenty-one or twenty-two years ago from the same cause have been forgotten. Two-thirds the age of a generation have been invented, and the present adventurers can see no sort of a parallel between the times then and now. We are neither a grumbler nor an " old fogy ". On the other hand, we are of a hopeful temperament, loving to look on the bright side of the picture rather than on the dark, and trusting, Micawber-like, for "something to turn up" that will make every bad-looking case better than it now appears. But the aspect of the times is fearful - not for the industrious community who stay at home and attend to their pursuits whatever they may be, but for those who are seized with the insane spirit of land speculation, and the victims who have entrusted their money to them. With them a fearful crash is at hand - averted, it may be, for a twelve-month but none the less fearful, or deeply calamitous. Let us look. We have enjoyed years of profound peace with all the world, save the episode of a Mexican war, which served only as pastime to the uneasy spirits who chose to take a hand in it in place of other mischief. California has opened to us her treasures, and poured into our coffers gold enough, if it had been well husbanded, to pay every foreign debt we owed, give a spur to every species of industry and make us financially the most independant species on the globe. But no; that would not do. We went railroad-mad to start with. Three roads were built where one was needed, with the consequence that they were mostly bankrupt before their owners found out whether the business of the country required him or not. Look at them. New England laid over with rails like new work, and not half a dozen lines among them paying running expenses and a dividend at all. New York has a score of them or more, with a hundred millions invested, and not over two or three lines paying an honest dividend. Ohio just so; and every western and southern state beyond and below in the same deficient category, or merely kept alive as bubbles for the " den of thieves " in Wall Street to gamble on. Here have gone millions on millions of our wealth and labour - sunk in hopeless, irredeemable loss. They have benefitted the country, to be sure, in the rise of farms, but even that rise in value has stimulated many of their owners to increased expenditure, and the creation of debts that in numberless cases will result in ruin. A few railroads would have been largely valuable, an income to their stockholders, and a benefit to the community. But as they are they must result in loss and calamity to their owners. Next came the public lands and speculations in them. The new railroads opened the way there. It is of no use to tell how these lands are sought and found, and pounced on, and bought and sold, and run over , and staked out, and then abandoned, so far as anything like permanent settlement is concerned , for other public land away beyond them, to be treated the same way in turn. Thousands of families, to be sure, settle upon them, many to become uneasy and homesick, and pine for their old deserted dwelling-places, and after years of discomfort, with patient industry, get into something like a liveable condition again, and make a wholesome productive community at last. This would all be well too, in moderation. But the tendency is to grab all creation in the way of land, land, land! - and land out west in the hands of speculators is only considered good to build cities and villages upon, through every one of which a new railroad is to run, and make it the central point of the whole universe - according to the story of its proprietors. Now, how works the thing? The whole county mist is alive with emigrants. How many of them, except a small percentage of our native people and the ignorant foreigners who settle down in agricultural communities really go to work at sober farming? The local markets there tell you. Beef and pork at a shilling a pound, even in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota; potatoes a dollar a bushel; corn the same; oats half as much; hay thirty dollars a ton, flour eight dollars a barrel; butter two shillings a pound, and every eatable for man or beast, in the same proportion, showing distinctly that instead of working, the community at large is spectating and " prospecting ". Lands of greater agricultural value are cheaper in Western New York, Ohio and Michigan, than in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. But New York, Ohio and Michigan are known only as states that the emigrating hordes go from, and as sources from which to draw their money for new speculations. Millions of productive acers [acres?] are left behind, with abundance of wood and water in a healthy climate, abandoned and uncared for, to rush out to the bleak prairie with neither wood or water in sight, and for years to absorb the money obtained from the yielding and despised acres left behind. Such is the present state of things. There are redeeming expectations to all this wild, helter-skelter picture we admit. But such is the general view, and as calamitous in results to come, unless suddenly checked as true to fact. Nor is this the worst. Back of all is the reckless extravagance of our whole population in living, dress, house-building, furniture and everything touching life as it goes. It is useless to enumerate. Look about you and see see it in everything, out of doors - "upstairs, and the ladies chamber" especially. The servant girls wear silks; their mistresses wear brocade and jewellery, while the household daughters go hopping, ride in gilded carriages, smash over the keys of the piano, or snap the strings of the guitar, making night hideous with discord for the particular benefit of troops of bewhiskered and worthless music masters and jewelled vagabonds. So much for private life. Morally and religiously , how is it? We build costly churches for proud and lazy worshippers - not of God, but of Mammon - where the poor cannot enter, but perchance, be driven to perdition, that pride of the eye and lust of the flesh may be gratified in their richer neighbours. Our dyspeptic and effeminate preachers, to work off the sinful effects of hot morning rolls, heavy dinners, and late suppers, must " go abroad " during the summer, with an extra allowance for expenses, while their frivolous congregations go skylarking about the watering-places, climb the White Mountains, or play the fool generally. Such is town life, and the sturdy, honest bumpkins of the country, gazing on at such riotous living, drop the hoe and leave the plough, go into town, turn clerk in a fancy store, enter a lawyer's or a doctor's office, and in a majority of cases turn out swindler, thief, or vagabond; as their ability, taste, or luck shall determine. Even the agricultural societies are becoming debauched. Our annual exhibitions are turned into horse-races and trotting matches, where the boys " cut up ", and the girls, on the backs of fact [fat?] nags, scamper over the ground like circus women, under the hurrahs of ribald men, and idlers, and loafers, without moral courage enough to put a stop to such nonsense, and restore those valuable institutions to their original interest and utility. This, our readers will exclaim, is a one-sided view of the case, and the very worst that can be said, if true at all. Very well; we will see. Let them gainsay it if they can. We have viewed the whole subject, seen and felt both sides of it, and know the facts. We are a farmer, love the soil, and own and cultivate enough of it to satisfy any moderate ambition; And for the edification of those who choose to grumble at our talk, just tell them, by the way, that we have more to say about it hereafter. |
