" CEAD MILE FAILTE !" THE HUNDRED THOUSAND WELCOMES !

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 230, 1 August 1846, Page 88

" CEAD MILE FAILTE !" THE HUNDRED THOUSAND WELCOMES !

" A flight of swallows pawed over our venel to-day. Some one said, ' Mayhap those birds will soon be in Ireland. Oh ! if the creatures had but the sense to carry news of us home, they'd be the welcome birds in Connaught!' I stood and watched them out of sight, and God knows my heart went with them."— Mxtract from an Irish Emigrant's Letter. Oh, happy, happy swallows !— -the spring is come again, And ye are bound for your old homes, beyond this weary main ! Fly on, fly on ! your last-year nests our roofs may shelter still, But the poor turf-fire is out at last ! our hearths are black and chill ! There is no life, there is no sound ! — the old man sits no more Within the shadow of the thatch, beside the cottage door; The child has ceased its playing in the shallow brook close by, And no kindly smoke is climbing the cold and empty sky ! Few eyes shall watch your coming ! few and sad our friends remain,—But " the hundred thousand welcomes !" shall be said to you again ! For us alone — poor Exiles !— those words of kindly cheer Shall fall no more in Irish tongue upon the longing ear ! None wait for us ! none welcome us ! Beyond the plunging wave, Small space — to labour in, and die — is all the Exiles crave ! Yet tell our friends in Ireland that we talk of them by day, And we dream of them the live-long night, and waken up to pray ! In sleep we feel the parting clasp of each beloved hand, And we hear the fervent accents of that cordialspoken land ! And we'll teach them to our children, even on that alien shore Where " the hundred thousand welcomes !" shall be said to us no more. Oh! blessed words! the very sound takes back the heart again, Like a glad bird, a thousand miles across this dreary main ! We hear no more the plashing wave beneath the vessel's prow — The dear green fields lie round us, which others labour now ! The sunny slopes! the little paths that wound from door to door ! So worn by friendly steps that ne'er shall tread those pathways more ! Dear faces gathered round the hearth ! dear voices in our ear ! And neighbour hands that clasp our own, and spread their simple cheer — That scanty meal, so hardly earned yet shared with such good-will ! — And " the hundred thousand welcomes !" that made it sweeter still ! Is the cabin still left standing ? Had the rich man need of all? Is the children's birth-place taken now within the new park wall ? And the little field ! that was to us such source of hopes and cares ? An unregarded harvest to the rich man's barn it bears! Oh, could he know how much to us that little field hath been : What heart-warm prayers have hallowed it ! what dismal fears between ! — What hopeless toil hath groaned to God from that poor plot of ground, Which held our all of painful life within its narrow bound ! — 'Twould seem no common earth to him! He'd grieve amidst his store That " the hundred thousand welcomes !" are said to us no more ! But tell our friends in Ireland that in our distant home We'll think of them in that glad time when back the swallows come ! The time for hopeful labour, when the dreary winter's past, And you see the long brown furrows are growing green at last ! And tell our friends we pray them to be patient in their pain, For the dear God knows our sorrows and His promise is not vain ! A little toil, a little care, and in a world of bliss We shall forget the poverty that parted us in this! How small a thing 'twill seem to us upon that blessed shore Where " the hundred thousand welcomes !" shall be ours for evermore ! — Examiner. H. D.

The World good on thb Whole. — You ask if I would agree to live my seventy, or rather seventy-three years over again. To which I say, Yes. I think with you, that it is a good world on the whole; that it has been framed on the principles of benevolence, and more pleasure than pain dealt out to us. There are indeed (who might say nay) gloomy and hypochondriac minds, inhabitants of diseased bodies, disgusted with the present and despairing of the future — always counting that the worst will happen because it may happen. To these I say — How much pain have cost us the evils which never happened ? My temperament is sanguine. I steer my barque with hope in the head, leaving fear astern. My hopes, indeed, sometimes fail, but not oftener than the forebodidgs of the gloomy. — Thomas Jefferson. Thb Persecutions of Calico. — In 1721, an act was passed imposing £b on the wearer and £20 on the seller of a piece of cotton cloth. In 1726, calicoes were tolerated, " provided the warp thereof was entirely of linen yam." In 1774 the Legislature tolerated calico, both weft and warp ! at a duty of 3d. a yard ; but in 1806 the Legislature, alarmed at its liberality, added lid. to the protective 3d., together with some salutary stamping on the calicoes to legitimate them. la 1813 madness ended, and calicoes were freed. — /. C. Symont.

Iron. — Fourcroy says that iron is the only met J which is not noxious, and whose effects are not to be feared. Indeed, its effects on the animi il economy are evidently beneficial. The ancien • had an idea that iron was poisonous,' and thfit wounds made with iron instruments healed wit taf difficulty. Hence, after the expulsion of the Ta v quins, Porsenna stipulated with the Romans thut they should not use iron, except in agriculture.