Thus write the Commissioners of Emigration, in their thirty-first General Report:  “In 1870, as in former years, the amount sent home was large, being L727,408 from North America, and L12,804 from Australia and New Zealand.  Of this sum there was remitted in prepaid passages to Liverpool, Glasgow, and Londonderry, L332,638; more than was sufficient to pay the passage money for all who emigrated that year!  Imperfect as our accounts are,” continue the Commissioners, “they show that, in the twenty three years from 1848 to 1870 inclusive, there has been sent home from North America, through banks and commercial houses, upwards of L16,334,000.  Of what has been sent home through private channels we have no account."[302]

A public writer, reviewing the Commissioners’ Report, says:  “Even this vast sum does not represent more than the one half of the total sent home.  Much was brought over by captains of ships, by relatives, friends, or by returning emigrants.”  No doubt, a great deal of money came through private channels, but it is hardly credible, that another sixteen or seventeen millions reached Ireland in that way.  It is only guess-work, to be sure, but if we add one-fourth to the sum named in the Report, as the amount transmitted by private hand, it will probably bring us much nearer the truth.  This addition gives us, in all, L20,417,500.

There, then, is the one more testimony, that the Irish race lack neither industry nor perseverance.  For the lengthened period of three and twenty years, something like L1,000,000 a-year have been transmitted to their relatives and friends by the Irish in America.  In three and twenty years, they have sent home over TWENTY MILLIONS OF MONEY.  Examine it; weigh it; study it; in whatever way we look at this astounding fact—­whether we regard the magnitude of the sum, or the intense, undying, all-pervading affection which it represents—­it STANDS ALONE IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.

FOOTNOTES: 

[269] Census of Ireland for the decade of years ending 1851.  Tables of deaths, vol.  I, p. 277.  Quotation from Dublin Quarterly Medical Journal.

[270] See “Census of Ireland, from 1841 to 1851.”  Tables of Deaths, vol. 1, p. 296.

[271] Dr. H. Kennedy, in Dublin Quarterly Journal.

[272] Census Returns.

[273] Those admissions increased to 110,381 in 1848.

[274] The percentage of deaths in the cholera, which succeeded to this fever in 1849, was forty-two one-fifth.

[275] Census of Ireland for the year 1851.  Report on tables of deaths.

[276] Report of Commissioners of Health.