Page:Irish In America.djvu/23

 THE

CHAPTER I.

Difference of the Position of the Irish in the Old Country, and the New—Difference in the Countries—Power and Dignity of Labour—The Irish Element strong in Halifax—Their Progress—The Value of a 'Lot'—No Snobbishness—The Secret of Prosperity—The Poor's Asylum—Cause of Poverty—Catholic Church in Nova Scotia—Sick 'Calls'—A Martyr to Duty—No State Church—Real Religious Equality—Its Advantages—Pictou—My Friend Peter—Peter shows the Lions—At the Mines—Irish everywhere—A Family Party—Nova Scotia as a Home for Emigrants.

CROSSING the Atlantic, and landing at any city of the American seaboard, one is enabled, almost at a glance, to recognise the marked difference between the position of the Irish race in the old country and in the new. Nor is the condition of the Irish at both sides of the ocean more marked in its dissimilarity than are the circumstances and characteristics of the country from which they emigrated and the country to which they have come. In the old country, stagnation, retrogression, if not actual decay in—the new, life, movement, progress; in the one, depression, want of confidence, dark apprehension of the future—in the other, energy, self-reliance, and a perpetual looking forward to a grander development and a more glorious destiny. That the tone of the public mind of America should be self-reliant and even boastful, is natural in a country of brief but pregnant history a country still in its