The million-peopled city
Garwood, John
1853
Their Hospitality.
Their hospitality and kindly feeling towards their country- men and kindred are further excellences in which the Irish stand pre-eminent. The sketch, given by the same excellent clergyman, of the arrival of an Irishman in London, is quite characteristic:- | |
"Imagine an Irishman just arrived from the green moun- tains of , in . Perhaps he has come alone, leaving his wife and children to follow, when he has laid up enough to bring them. And in this case they have to wait long, for it is seldom that the Irishman earns more than enough to keep himself alive. Or perhaps he brings them over with him, and the man, and his wife, and half a dozen shoeless and stockingless children, are looking about a dark court to find a night's lodging. They are sure to meet some one with whom they have some sort of acquaintance or connexion. Or if not, the Irishman, HOWEVER POOR, never wants hospitality. They show it in what seems to us a strange way. The family is all wel- comed to the fourth corner of a third floor back, in all the other three corners of which some family is domiciled. The landlord of this room has let two of the other corners, keeping the third and fourth for himself; He knows that under the New Police Act he is liable to be fined for overcrowding his room, but he runs that risk, and ." | |