THE DEPOTS FOR IRISH EMIGRATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2004, 21 July 1892, Page 39

THE DEPOTS FOR IRISH EMIGRATION.

Derry is to the North what Cork is to the South — the outlet for that vast stream of Western emigration, still flowing towards the setting sun with that irresistibleness of an inexhaustible wave. The quays are crowded with emigrants waiting for the steamer for Moville But the types are not thote that fill the tenders in Queenstown. There is a certain proportion of the unmistakable Celt. They come from the banks of Lough Neagb, from the highlands of Donegal, from the wilds of Mayo, But the majority represent the Ulster Scot, hard-beaded, coarsefeatured, broad-shouldered. Here are a cluster of mill-workers; weavers and winders, spinners and scutchers ; the women wondrously bedizened with flowers and feathers, and Abyssioian gold ornaments; the men with violent neckties, boiler hats, and awful checked garments of urmtterable ugliness, supported by the filthy pipe, and accompanied by the faithful terrier. The3emill hands are going to Philadelphia, where a syndicate of American capitalists are making a stupendous effort to wrest from Ulster the coarselinen trade of the United States. There are a group of the island men, brawny, stalwart giants, going out to try iron-working in Pennsylvania. Then there is the nsual contingent of adventurers full of that hope that spriDgs eternal in the human breast, men who have tried everything hero and failed, and who are going to repeat their experience far from the kindly home m which sheltered them for so long ; a trio of Christian brothers ; two Salvation sisters, one wondrously beautiful, with soft blue eyes, golden hair, and an exquisitely moulded figure which even the awful uniform and the execrable coalscuttle could not disguise, the other a champion slum sister, with dented face and coarse hard hands and siogle eye

Verily, I said to myself, the general knows well the magical association of opposite natures that made Ignatius Loyola the champion regenerator of the world. The boat slowly moved down towards the sea. One factory young man caught one factory young girl by the waist, and danced round in the limited space at his disposal to the lively tune of "Off to Philadelphia," which a brother operative succeeded with some difficulty in evolving from an antediluvian concertina. Not to be eclipsed, the Salvation Sister with the battered face and oblique eye struck up a spirited invitation, 11 Come to glory just now," while her beautiful companion rattled her tambourine joyfully as an additional inducement for an acceptance of the offers of grace. The Christian Brothers drew apart, and gazed on the retiring shore with lack-lustre eyes. The peasants formed a group by themselves, sitting on their rudely-made green wooden boxes, or standing in silent couples. Down one girl's cheeks— they were pretty, applecoloured cheeks — the tears were rolling fast ; another, a tall, imperial-looking Irishwoman, with the hair of 'Aurora and the bust of a Juno, bib her quivering lips, and straightened her tall Svelte figure, lest the eye of a stranger should profane her profound grief. An old Highland shepherd, bound for Manitoba, and accompanied by his daughter and grandchild, formed, I think, the most perfect picture. With his long, white hair floating to the wind, his shepherd's plaid, his bonnet, and his sporran, he was a painfully whimsical resemblance to Professor Blackie. And when he took up his pipes and began that most plaintive, that most exquisitely saddening air, "We shall return to Lochaber no more," the wail of the expatriated Celt, it seemed the fittest melody to pass from the miseries of the Old World to the mysteries of the New.