In 1859, the imports were $383,768,130; the exports were $356,789,462; and the tonnage was 5,146,037.  This increase is beyond all historical precedence, and a future historian, who found such amazing statistics of increase, and knew nothing of emigration, would be strangely puzzled to account for it.  But if he searched the files of an old English or Irish newspaper office, whatever might have been the creed or politics of its proprietors, he would soon arrive at a satisfactory solution.  In the Irish Times, the leading Irish paper of the day, he would find the following reference to the present history of Ireland:  “The Emigration Commissioners notice with some surprise the fact, that, during the past year [1867], the emigrants from Ireland were better clothed, and carried with them better furnished kits, than either the English or foreign emigrants.  During the past year, 51,000 Irish emigrants left Liverpool alone—­a regiment nearly one thousand strong every week.  The loss of 100,000 persons annually, chiefly of the labouring classes, and generally strong, active, well-built men, affords matter for serious consideration.  If the Government be contented that 100,000 yearly of the Irish population should, increase the power of America [the italics are our own], they have but to refuse those generous and considerate measures which alone can keep our people at home, by giving them a chance of progressing as they do in America.”

This is the honestly avowed opinion of a Protestant paper, whose editors are beyond all suspicion of writing to encourage “Popery,” or preach Fenianism.  An admirable parliamentary comment has just occurred in the rejection of the Protestant Church Suspension Bill by the House of Lords, though there is no doubt that the good sense and the native justice of the English nation will at length compel its acceptance.

The fact is, that at this moment nearly one-half the population of America are Irish and Catholics.  The writer lately quoted, cannot refrain from a sneer at the “low Irish” in America, to whom he attributes the “insult and injury” which he is pleased to consider that Americans manifest to foreign nations, and especially to England; he forgets the old sources of injury, which no American can forget; and he forgets, also, how easily the same “low Irish” might have been prevented from exhibiting the feeling which he attributes to them.

Let those who wish to understand the present history of Ireland, read Mr. Maguire’s Irish in America, carefully and thoughtfully.  If they do so, and if they are not blinded by wilful prejudices, they must admit that the oft-repeated charges against Irishmen of being improvident and idle are utterly groundless, unless, indeed, they can imagine that the magic influence of a voyage across the Atlantic can change a man’s nature completely.  Let them learn what the Irishman can do, and does do, when freed from the chains of slavery, and when he is permitted to reap some reward