" THE LAST PLAGE ON GOD'S EARTH."

Waikato Times, Volume 2656, Issue 2656, 20 July 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

" THE LAST PLAGE ON GOD'S EARTH."

The following interesting: letter, giving an intelligible account of the condition of the Irish emigrants to Buenos Ayres, has been received at Limerick from »« artisan who went out in tbe Drosdeu He says: When we landed we were fent to the hotel, where we would bo cired for. It was a hirge wooden building, the form of Griffith's house, but twico as high and five limes as large. When we got there it was taken up with '2000 Italians. There were loungo rooms and wooden bunks, no straw, or, in fact, no place to lay our heads, only on tbo pavement. 0, God, it was fearful to think of it. There we lay in heaps—young and old, male and female —all lay together to try to keep heat in them. Oh! to think of that night ! Words could not express tho misery. Rich bonnets, fancy shawls went for pillows—wo got no food, children ronring, women crying for want of food. I might as well state it was worse. (The writer here gives a terrible account of the sanitary arrangements, or rather almost total lack of arrangements.) We thought it was frightful, and the Italians did not care. In the morning, being Sunday, I started to look for a chapel about live o'clock. On my way to mass I began to think I had made a mistake of the day. Bricklayers, smiths, men of every class, all at work hard, like Saturday at home, pulling out for an early finish. However, I got to the chapel; it was most grand, one all built of white marble. There are more chapels in Buenos Ayres than in Limerick and Cork put together, but they might as well not be there afc all. There is no Sunday kept at all. Cody got a job 300 miles from Buenoß Ayres at one and a-half dollars per day and his food. It was I got the job, but the family would not be taken with me so I gave it to him. Fifty got jobs at that, and forty came back—they could not stand it-but Cody stopped. They had to work from dawn, which is very early there, until dark, on a few hard biscuits and a bit of beef—no drink only water, no place to sleep, only on the road side. The Italians are working for nothing and a bit of bread. It is the last place in God's world. We had to leave Buenos Ayres to form an Irish colony. We started on the '27th at seven o'clock, and we did not get there until the 28th, at twelve that night ; we were thirty hours in the train, a distance of 650 miles, without stopping. We never got a bit of food during the whole time except one half-biscuit. Two children died in the train from want. \\ e were stopped suddenly and dropped on the line" on the wide open prairie ; no house to be seen, no shelter, only lie down on the heather ; no food was boiled. The night was calm. We got up in the morning and began to set about making a breakfast out of nothing. We found our baggage here. It weut on two days before ( its." In° my box there were six biscuits that I got in the first week in the Dresden, and a small grain of tea and sugur. Wo started to lowit for water. We had to scrape it with a pint out of a dyke. However, we have fared better than others, I a s they had nothing. All the children are dying in camp ; Ag. is on her last. We heard there are some more emigrants coming, but may God pity them. No ■ tradesmen of any class arc wanted hero, i ' Shoemaking is no use ; tailor, smith, no • use; tho farming claes is all that is i wanted here. We are promised 80 acres i of land, but now it has to be tilled first. Good bye, I suppose, for ever.