to breathe, whose
aspect changeless and deathlike alone met their eyes, and fancied them,
in some hour of leisure, calling to memory the green valley and the pure
river, or the rocky glen and sparkling brook of their distant home, with
all the warmth of colouring the imaginative spirit of the Irish peasant
can so well supply, my heart has swelled and my eyes have filled with
tears.

I cannot hope to inspire the reader with my feelings upon a mere sketch
like this; but if I could set the scene of these poor labourers' exile
fairly forth, with all the sad accompaniments detailed; could I show the
course of the hardy, healthy pair, just landed, to seek fortune on these
long-sighed-for shores, with spirits newly lifted by hope and brighter
prospects from the apathy into which compulsory idleness and consequent
recklessness had reduced them at home; and then paint the spirit-sinking
felt on a first view of the scene of their future labour,--paint the
wild revel designed to drown remembrance, and give heart to the
new-comers; describe the nature of the toil where exertion is taxed to
the uttermost, and the weary frame stimulated by the worst alcohol,
supplied by the contractor, at a cheap rate for the purpose of exciting
a rivalry of exertion amongst these simple men.

Next comes disease, either a sweeping pestilence that deals wholesale on
its victims, or else a gradual sinking of mind and body; finally, the
abode in the hospital, if any comrade is interested enough for the
sufferer to bear him to it; else, the solitary log-hut and quicker
death. Could these things with their true colours be set forth in detail
before the veriest grinder of the poor that ever drove the peasant to
curse and quit the soil of his birth, he would cover his eyes from the
light of heaven, and feel that he yet possessed a heart and human
sympathy.

At such works all over this continent the Irish are the labourers
chiefly employed, and the mortality amongst them is enormous,--a
mortality I feel certain might be vastly lessened by a little
consideration being given to their condition by those who employ them.
At present they are, where I have seen them working here, worse lodged
than the cattle of the field; in fact, the only thought bestowed upon
them appears to be, by what expedient the greatest quantity of labour
may be extracted from them at the cheapest rate to the contractor. I
think, however, that a better spirit is in progress amongst the