SHE RMAN.—THE EMIGRATION. [Fitom OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.]
New York, July 30, 1884.
GENERAL SHERMAN has fought and won another desperate and bloody battle before Atlanta, which cost the Union army 2,500 in killed and wounded and the insurgents certainly 6,000, for General Sherman has buried 1,000 of their dead. According to the reports of all the prisoners General Hood himself was killed. Uncertain as to this event, we are sadly sure of a great loss to the country in the death of General Macpherson, one of the ablest and highest-spirited officers of our army. He, like Sedgwick, was not killed in battle, but was brought down by a concealed sharpshooter while superintending some preliminary arrangements. It is worthy of mention that these battles of the 2lth and 22nd are among the few in our war in which the opposing forces have met without cover in the open field. Our attacks, whether seccessful or other- wise, are almost invariably upon an enemy well entrenched, and in the present campaign generally protected by elaborately constructed earthworks. You will doubtless observe that the insurgents claim a victory at Atlanta. That was to have been expected. But the very terms of their claim show its falsity. They say that Sherman was "repulsed." But it was Hood who attacked, and very f a, iously he did it, and it was Hood who went back into his works around which the " repulsed" General Sherman immediately closed his lines, which the insurgents have since made two ineffectual attempts to carry. General Grant has taken a step forward, and put his foot down north of the. James, above Bermuda hundred. He was attacked while crossing the river, but defeated his assail- ants and took their position with four guns, which proved to be four that we had lost at Drewry's Bluff (Fort Darling).
Some of the humane British friends of the people of this country,
like the London Times' correspondent " S.," who are so shocked at the carnage of our battles (we of course like it; but then what else could you expect of Yankees, even of Yankees who "always run away ?") that they wish to mediate our republic in twain, are mourning over the poor deluded people in Germany who will invest money in our Government bonds. And they are lost in wonder that after the authoritative announcements of the London Times at brief intervals for two years that we were on the brink of financial ruin these Germans will go on buying United States bonds, if the buying of our bonds by the Germans be occasion of condolence " S." and his fellows may well grieve, for the bonds have been taken in Germany for the last six months at the rate of 3,000,000 dollars a week, and the demand is increasing. Perhaps others among you than such as "S." wonder why the Germans will invest solid gold in such flimsy security as a bond of the United States. Simply because they have what they re- gard as better authority than the London Times upon the ability of this country to pay its debts,—to pay them in any event. That authority is the letters of their own kith and kin, the Germans who have emigrated to the free Statr*, and who in very many instances among the well-to-do among them are not only the kinsmen but the business partners of their correspondents at home. These people become practically and profitably ac- quainted with the resources of the country, and the character and capacity of its people. They come here to stay, and they study these questions with the earnestness and the candour of men who have a permanent personal interest in them. They do not come here brimful of prejudice and scorn, and to find out and write back all the faults, great and small, which will make the people at home believe that it is best to go on just as they always have done, to rest and be thankful, and above all never to do anything as it is done by the Yankees. They are able to send back ac counts of their own prosperity and happiness, of a freedom which they had dreamed of but never before known, and of unbroken social order and well-being (one Irish riot excepted) even in the midst of a great civil war. More than this, they are soon able to send back money that they borrowed to come out here, or to lend it to moneyleas friends who desire to follow them, and to offer places in their warehouses, their shops, or their farms to young kinsmen in the Fatherland. The very German emigrants themselves, too, bring
wealth with them into the country. Not only their muscles, their skill as artizans, and their intelligence (for in general they are not mere peasants, and have intelligence and some education), but actual money. From 200 to 500 dole. for every individual in her steerage is not unfrequently brought here by a German emigrant ship, and sometimes the sum is very much larger.
The Irish do not bring money, or skilled labour, or education of even the most rudimentary kind, but they do bring health, strength, and a great ability and willingness t i do hard work. And in spite of all the stories printed in the Liverpool and the Dublin papers about the way in which they are deceived here, and how they are wheedled and driven into the army, they continue to come. The emigration of late to this port alone has been at the rate of 4,271 weekly, of which number three-fifths were probably Irish and two-fifths Germans. Now why will these deluded Irish- men coma here, when the London, and the Liverpool, and the Dublin papers,—those of them who are shocked at bloodshed here, but who looked upon it unmoved in Poland and in Denmark,—tell such piteous tales of the fate of Irishmen in this country? For a• reason like that which leads the Germans to buy United States bonds. They hear directly from their " coozins" in this country, and the word that is sent back of plenty of work and good pay, and no "rint " or Church of England tithes, and schooling for the " childther," and "mate and tay" upon, the table, is so often accompanied by evidence in the shap3 of a Bank of Ireland note to help the " ould people," or to bring out Jamie or Biddy, with the promise of an illigant place," that " S." might write the Times full daily, and Sir Robert Peel talk till his feet grew to the floor, and it would b3 vain to stay this on- flow. The comfort, and more than comfort, which these people find here ready to their hands is even beyond their expectation. "Write av ye plaze," said one of them to a friend of mine, his master, who was acting as his amanuensis, " Write av ye plaze, that I get mate twice a week." " Why, Patrick; what do you mean by saying so? You know you get meat every day." " Yis, yer honor, I know I do, an long life to yer honour ; but they wuddent behave it. I'm siudin two pounds, an they'll behave I get mate twice a week; but they wuddent behave for ivery day undther five pounds ; an so say only twice av ye plaze." The care of these poor Irish people for those whom they have left behind them is touch- ing, a noble and a redeeming trait in their character. They seem never content unless they can make father and mother, brothers and sisters, and even "coozins" sharers in their good fortune; and in the case of the young people they almost always do this by sending them money to pay their passage out here. They drudge from morning till night, save their money, and send it out to Ireland. Their only extravagance is in dress, and on Sundays they appear in gar- ments which are fearfully and wonderfully made. Indeed, I am inclined to think that Mr. Sala's recent description in the London Telegraph of certain delicate monstrosities of the female toilet which he saw on Sunday afternoon in the Fifth Avenue (not re- cognizable by me or mine as a street garb familiar to our eyes) was written under the very serious error of having mistaken the maids for the mistresses. It takes so long, years generally, according to my observation, for your true Briton to find out who are " Ameri- cans."
But to return to the emigration. The money which the Irish send home, and which is so great in quantity that drawing the bills has become no insignificant part of our banking business, is the very life-spring of the stream of immigration which steadily pours upon us. The filial love, the clannishness, and the calculat- ing unselfishness of the Celt furnish the means by which it would seem as if Ireland must soon be depopulated. Perhaps some of my readers may ask why don't the English artizans and labourers emigrate to the United States if so much comfort awaits them there? What the reason is I cannot tell, but the English immigrants to this country do not send back money to bring out their kinsmen, they send back very little for any purpose ; and the class which furnishes emigrants in England, always excepting those few cultivated people who come here to live, and whom for some reason or other we don't call immigrants, does not seem to have that little stock of money in hand which is so common
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