Page:Irish In America.djvu/30

8 or, there is not a better conducted man in the province. The golden rule of success in life was thus frequently expressed: To get on here, a man must be industrious and well-conducted; with industry and good conduct any man, no matter what he is, or what he has, or how he begins, can get on here; but not without these essentials. But the man who drinks, bid him remain at home—he won't do here. Spoken in Nova Scotia, as the experience of people of all ranks, classes, and occupations, it is equally applicable to every province of British America, and every State in the Union. Industry, sobriety, good conduct these, under favourable circumstances, raise the humblest to the level of the great; and favourable circumstances abound in America.

A visit to two institutions of very different character impressed me with a still stronger conviction of the prosperity of Halifax. These institutions, its Poor's Asylum and its Schools.

The number in the Poor's Asylum, according to the record in the book, was 354. This was the gross number; but the number belonging to the city was only 120, which was small for a population of 34,000. The rest had been sent in from various places in the province—some from distances varying from 50 even to 200 miles. Strictly speaking, there was not an able-bodied male pauper in the establishment: those who were there were the aged, the infirm, the sick, the helpless, or those waifs and strays that are stranded on the shore of life, the victims of their folly and infatuation. Deducting the children, 64 in number, the insane or idiotic, about 50 in all, and the sick, infirm, and aged, who were the majority, the remaining were but few. As the Master said, there was not in the house a man who could perform a day s work.

What to do with our workhouse children—how to deal with those who are brought up in such institutions is one of the most formidable difficulties with which the adminis-