Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/523

Charles Dickens] to be conscious of this rivalry—each seems to feel that the other is in his way. Each affects a profound contempt for the other; and as both are gifted with a facile use of the tongue, and a perfect arsenal of epithets, a hostile dialogue between the white and the black is one of the most unique and amusing imaginable. Sometimes, in the more northerly of the States where slavery formerly existed, Irish and negroes are found huddled together in the same quarter or suburb; then there is constant quarrelling and strife.

It is odd that, much as the Irish like to huddle together and live in crowds, such a thing is scarcely ever heard of as an Irish colony in the vast plains of the West. Natural farmers as they are, you never hear of their associating together, taking a westward course, and settling on the rich domains which the American government offers free to all who will "squat" and till. In Michigan there is a famous Dutch colony, where nothing but Dutch is spoken, nothing but Dutch dishes are eaten, nothing but Dutch pipes are smoked, and none but Dutchmen hold office; a colony imported from Amsterdam. Further South—in those states which formerly composed part of the French colony of Louisiane—French colonies may be found, where you would starve before you found a man who could understand your order for dinner in English. In Missouri, Nebraska, and Kansas, German settlements may be found quite as characteristic and exclusively foreign. There is so large a leaven of the Teutonic element in Missouri, that a German refugee has just now been elected United States senator to represent that great and growing state. But the Irish have not, as a mass, a capacity of self-reliance. They must cling as dependents upon another civilisation; so they remain in the East, and leave the emigrants of other nations to patiently build up communities stamped with their own national traits in the boundless West.

What becomes of the Irish girls who constitute a large majority of the emigrants? The great mass of them become cooks, maids-of-all-work, chambermaids, household servants of some sort. Probably the chambermaids and scullerymaids of every hotel in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago—all the cities—are buxom Irish girls. At least nine-tenths of the servants in the private houses in the North and East are of the same nation. The healthy Irish girl who leaves her own country to seek her fortune beyond the ocean, has in her excellent stuff for the fulfilling of household duties. She is strong, she is quick to learn, she is willing to work, and wherever she is wanting in taste, tutelage by the mistress goes far to mend it. Many family matrons prefer to take a raw emigrant rather than a girl who has been long in America. She is more honest, she is not troubled with too many beaux and acquaintances, she blunders yet is willing to learn, she does her best, and she has not yet acquired those grand notions of dress and independence which the Irish girl long resident is apt to have picked up. She is capable of making a really good plain cook, and if she be taken straight from shipboard, may be educated to her mistress's peculiar style of cookery—every mistress, be it said, having a style and dishes of her own. The main trouble with the Irish servant is, that she is prone to be too social in character, readily makes acquaintances, and holds high carnival in the kitchen with the family provisions. Still, with all her shortcomings, she is nothing less than invaluable to American households. It is only in the far West, and back in the rural districts of New England, that native American girls are found in service. The negro "Mammies," now free, are probably destined to become rivals of the Irish "Biddies;" still, the former usually prefer their native South to the bleak and unfruitful North.

During the war of the Rebellion, the Irish naturalised citizens of the United States did sterling service for the Federal cause. Throughout the land, volunteer regiments were formed composed exclusively of Irishmen; and more than one illustrious name among the Union generals betrays the Celtic origin of its bearer. Sheridan, now second in command of the American army, was the son of Irish parents; the gallant Colonel Corcoran, of the New York Irish Regiment, was one of the most brilliant soldiers and best beloved commanders of the epoch. The revival of Fenianism since the war, is often attributed to the martial spirit engendered among the Irish soldiers during that great struggle; and this is no doubt partially true. But the spirit of hostility to England among the emigrant Irish of America was universally prevalent long before the war; and while that event gave greater force to the movement in favour of Irish independence, it by no means developed any greater rancour than that previously felt towards the mother country. Fenianism owes much encouragement to native American demagogues who have hounded it on for their own political purposes; but it chiefly owes its popularity among the American Irish to the energy, boldness, and eloquence of a few Irish leaders, most of whom were Federal officers in the war. If anything were wanting to prove the incapacity of the Irish character for self-government, the course of Fenianism in America proves it. They are too bellicose among themselves; they never have been cordially united; they are credulous, and allow swindlers to rob them; they are quarrelsome, and dissipate their energy and resources in internal dissension. The poor Irish servant, ardently attached to "darling Erin," and excited by the harangues against England, saved her little weekly pittance, and cheerfully gave it up to Fenian "circles" to be devoured by the leaders of the cause, and to be embezzled by the swindlers to whom they confided it.

The Irish in America, although, as has been said, they are clannish, do yet gradually merge themselves into the general community, and become part and parcel of the American population. The second generation of the