A BOSTON PHILANTHROPIST. G REAT complaints were rife in the House
of Commons and elsewhere all last winter about the systematic enlist.. ment of Irishmen by agents of the United States. At the same time, while very few people doubted that the railway work for which the men were nominally engaged was but a blind to defeat the law of this country, calm observers could not help seeing that the friends of the South assumed the agency of the American emissaries without a particle of evi- dence, and in the teeth of the disclaimer of Mr. Adams and his Government. This was natural enough, for the assumption was useful in argument, but we fear that the publication by the Foreign Office of the correspondence on this subject between Lord Lyons and the British Consuls at Boston and Portland will be somewhat of a disappointment. It is now clear that the United States Government had nothing at all to do with the enterprise, which is altogether due to the cosmopolitan philan- thropy of a Boston merchant. The name of this good man is Jerome G. Kidder. Struck by "the depths of poverty" in which the Irish labourer lives, and also " by the great need we have of labour here," i. e., in New England, he entered into relations which are not very well defined with a Mr. Finney. We are not surprised to find this gentleman des- cribed as " a person of bad reputation." It is the same in this country, where the worldling so despises the disinterested labours of generous men that the late Mr. Douglas Jerrold, who had unhappily incurred a reputation for philanthropy, angrily exclaimed that a man was tempted to commit one murder just to get rid of the character once for all. But whatever may have been the arrangement between these two benefactors of their species, the result was that Finney pro- ceeded to Ireland and engaged 102 young men to work on railroads and waterworks at 21. per month, with board and lodging, a free passage, and a suit of clothes. Mr. Finney indeed denies the free passage and the clothes, and puts the wages at ten dollars, but the extent of the philanthropy of the adventurers may be fairly estimated by their expenditure, which is estimated at 1,1001. This fortunate band of 102 set sail from Liverpool on February 27 in the steamer Nova Scotian, and arrived at Portland on Wednesday morning, March 9.
Distrust, however, had already been sown in the breasts of the emigrants. The firemen and stewards of the steamer had dropped hints. Mr. Finney himself, well knowing the mar- tial fire which has always animated Irishmen, jocularly re- marked to some of the men who inquired about the work they were to do that " they might find themselves shoulder- ing a musket on their arrival." And when on the voyage out he discovered that one of the emigrants was blind.of one eye, he swore, and declared that he had been "rightly sucked in." It is true that one-eyed men are not taken for military service, and are perfectly fit for work on railways, but this is a slanderous inference. Even philanthropists feel hurt at con- cealment and deception ; and doubtless the recording angel blotted that oath, as he did Uncle Toby's. Thus when the emi- grants landed they were disposed to listen to bad men, and American recruiting officers care little for railways or philan- thropy. Hardly had the ship reached harbour when a man, who said he was a Canadian, but of whom nobody knows anything except that he is not a recruiting officer, bought a demijohn of whisky and carried it to the wharf. Soon the emigrants found out the rum-shops, and there were two or three well-dressed men—nobody knows their names—liberal with their money. They did not drink, but the emigrants did. When Irishmen and whisky get together there is but one result. There was a tremendous row. Some got into the station-house, where for the present we must leave them, and when the train left for Boston the 102 had diminished to 86. They arrived at Boston at half-past nine that evening, and were conveyed to an old store belonging to Mr. Kidder, where there was neither food nor bedding ; but this was of the less consequence, as the next morning they had whisky for breakfast. Tho night before Mr. Kidder appeared at the store. Unfortunately there was no work ready for them, so that he could not per- form his contract to the letter, but, as he remarked, " that need make no difference, they need not be idle a single day, they could enlist at once ;" and as it could make no differ- ence to them, perhaps he might add that the 28th was an Irish regiment. The play was now played out. Unfoitunately the people of Boston are not philanthropists. They took up the cause of the emigrants. They made a sub- scription. They appointed a committee. They elicited the fact that Jerome G. Kidder had no work for these men, that he had never tried to get any for them, though he had applied to a recruiting agent ; that an arrangement he made with the contractor of the waterworks was an afterthought, not made till the men were in Boston, and ho found himself exposed to the indignation of his fellow townsmen ; and that in his pre- parations for their reception he had not treated them " as even the common usages of civilization demand that human beings should be treated." To all which Mr. Jerome G. Kidder replies that his sole object was " to do a great deal of good at a small outlay;" that the Boston people would have done better, instead of subscribing money to aid these men, to second his efforts for their highest good by starving them into work—or, say military service ; that he regrets to find that they are not subscribing to reimburse him for his outlay, of which the men, by running away without enlisting, have defrauded him ; and finally, that " the conduct of the men on this occasion will no doubt preclude the probability of any further attempts of the kind being made." Such is the meed -which, even in America, awaits philanthropy.
So far the American Government is absolutely free from any shadow of blame, in what follows it cannot be entirely acquitted. We have stated that the moment the Nova Scotian touched the wharf at Portland the poor Irishmen were plied by " well-dressed persons " with whisky. That they should get drunk and into gaols is a matter of course, and what is undoubted is that the police gave the recruiting agents free access to them, and that six got out only to enter the army. The men say that they were kept without food, were told that the punishment for drunkenness was thirty days' imprisonment, that they could only escape by enlisting, and that they did enlist simply to get out of prison. Of course the policemen and crimps tell a totally different story. Neither side is, we think, entirely to be believed. The men certainly were sober and did not object when they came before the Enlistment Board. One Michael Byrne was at first rejected "for some diffi- culty with his foot," and was only passed because he had been in the British service, and declared that he could march with perfect ease. 'Yet he is now one of the most truculent de- nouncers of the way he was enlisted, and loudly demands of Lord Lyons that the English Government should " seek for satisfaction for his blood, and strike the iron while it is hot, and also well he knows that France would join in it." But then he has been wounded, and writes from hospital. On the other hand, 'Pulley, though silent before the Board, wrote to Lord Lyons two days after he was enlisted, and refused at least the Government bounty. On the whole, it seems clear that not only were these men decoyed to America by a scan- dalous deception, but that they were left penniless on landing, and then plied with whisky, and alternately coaxed and threatened till they enlisted ; and that further the police, if they did not second, at least winked at the rascality of the recruiting agents. Now the American Government is certainly responsible for the conduct of the police.
Nor can it—from a moral point of view—be allowed alto- gether to throw off its responsibility for the conduct of the recruiting agents. They tempted these "philanthropists " by offering bounties, which—including state bounties and local premiums—amount to 700 and even 820 dollars. And they allow these bounties, or at all events did allow them, to be paid to the recruiting agents. The result is of course " fraud, violence, and all kinds of villany." The brokers are said to have plundered the public of 400,000 dollars. A regular system of kidnapping has obtained, and of course foreigners and sailors, who have no friends to miss them, are the safest game. But, on the other hand, the misery of these atrocities has fallen mainly on the Americans them- selves, and it was the domestic outcry which compelled the Government to send General Dix to adopt those " stringent measures" by which, as he reports, "this whole system is nearly broken up." Horrible as is the scene which his report - discloses, large bounties have in all countries produced the same results. When the father of Frederick the Great paid well for tall grenadiers, the crimps supplied them, and Europe com- plained in vain. Even here it was the same in the last war. Captain Marryatt was an advocate for impressment, but the reader of "Jacob Faithful" knows how far he believed the gangs to respect the law.
Indeed Lord Lyons admits that it is no easy matter to b...„ --determine when the complaints addressed to him are well founded. Some of the applicants are not entitled to British protection, and some have enlisted voluntarily to get the bounties, and then apply to the Embassy to get their discharge. But like all other Governments in similar circumstances, Mr. Seward does not like giving up men when ho has got them and paid for them. In point of form his answers are every- thing that is soothing. He transmits the remonstrances of Lord Lyons to the 'War Department. There is much leisurely correspondence. It becomes a controversy. At last a board is appointed to investigate, as in this case. It examines the police and crimps—the parties accused—but omits to send for the complainants, so that they may be confronted with and cross-examine them. The board of course believes the police, then there is more correspondence, and at last on the 8th of June—three months after the enlistment—a new and thorough investigation into the complaint of the seven Irishmen is ordered. But by that time two are killed, two are wounded and in hospital, and one invalided. We can only hope that when the investigation was finished, if it ever has been finished, the remaining two were in a condition to profit. by it.
In all this, however, while there is much to blame, there is very little reason for anger, or even surprise. The South has certainly treated British subjects who objected to enlist very much worse, and it is at least doubtful whether a resident alien who remains in a country after war has broken out is- not liable to be called on to take his share in its defence. For the schemes of Messrs. Kidder and Finney the Government at Washington is not responsible, nor has it either directly or indirectly sanctioned recruiting in British dominions. It has- kept clear of the error into which Sir John Crampton fell. All that can be said is that it takes a good deal to convince the- Secretary of State that a British subject has been improperly enlisted. Perhaps the most amusing part of the whole story is, that even now the philanthropists are still at work. They even apply to our Consul at Boston for a certificate that aliens- are not liable to serve in the United States armies, "as the• apprehension of military service is believed to stand in the. way of obtaining a very fair supply of labourers from the Welsh quarries," and are very particular in their inquiries as to the provisions of the Canadian law against recruiting.
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