of the boats.  Many who would have willingly gone to America lacked the passage money.  The Irish peasant, born and reared in extreme poverty, was peculiarly unable to scrape together enough to pay his way.  The assistance which he needed, however, was forthcoming from various sources.  Friends and relatives in America sent him money; in later years this practice was very common.  Societies were organized to help those who could not help themselves.  Railroad and canal companies, in great need of labor, imported workmen by the thousands and advanced their passage money.  And finally, the local authorities found shipping their paupers to another country a convenient way of getting rid of them.  England early resorted to the same method.  In 1849 the Irish poor law guardians were given authority to borrow money for such “assistance,” as it was called.  In 1881 the Land Commission and in 1882 the Commissioner of Public Works were authorized to advance money for this purpose.  In 1884 and 1885 over sixteen thousand persons were thus assisted from Galway and Mayo counties.

Long before the great Irish famine of 1846-47 America appeared like a mirage, and wondering peasants in their dire distress exaggerated its opulence and opportunities.  They braved the perils of the sea and trusted to luck in the great new world.  The journey in itself was no small adventure.  There were some sailings directly from Ireland; but most of the Irish immigrants were collected at Liverpool by agents not always scrupulous in their dealings.  A hurried inspection at Liverpool gained them the required medical certificates, and they were packed into the ships.  Of the voyage one passenger who made the journey from Belfast in 1795 said:  “The slaves who are carried from the coast of Africa have much more room allowed them than the immigrants who pass from Ireland to America, for the avarice of captains in that trade is such that they think they can never load their vessels sufficiently, and they trouble their heads in general no more about the accommodation and storage of their passengers than of any other lumber aboard.”  When the great immigrant invasion of America began, there were not half enough ships for the passengers, all were cruelly overcrowded, and many were so filthy that even American port officials refused a landing before cleansing.  Under such conditions sickness was a matter of course, and of the hordes who started for the promised land thousands perished on the way.[22]

Hope sustained the voyagers.  But what must have been the disappointment of thousands when they landed!  No ardent welcome awaited them, nor even jobs for the majority.  Alas for the rosy dreams of opulence!  Here was a prosaic place where toil and sweat were the condition of mere existence.  As the poor creatures had no means of moving on, they huddled in the ports of arrival.  Almshouses were filled, beggars wandered in every street, and these peasants accustomed to the soil and the open country were congested