4 SUNSHINE AND SPORT IN 



in the old country he had rarely had enough 

 to eat. 



To us, then, enter a thousand of this exiled and 

 homesick Irishry. One day indeed they and their 

 progeny may fix the world's price for wheat and 

 bacon. They have my best wishes. Meanwhile, 

 this April evening, it is a miserable herd that strains 

 dull eyes towards the shores of the green isle now 

 receding behind a creamy wake patrolled by mewing 

 gulls. The remainder of the steerage company is 

 another thousand of assorted wretchedness from 

 ghettoes east of Weser, peasants from the snows 

 of Scandinavia, slum-scourings from the suns of 

 Italy, some patiently gnawing black bread, others 

 fervently breathing garlic. Theirs is the forma 

 neglecta praised by the Latin poet ; their physique 

 is mostly consumptive ; they wear the expression 

 of dumb suffering seen in overworked cab-horses. 

 What wonder that these poor human cattle should 

 crowd aboard every ocean-going steamer for the Far 

 West. Their motherlands were but stepmothers ; 

 life was made a misery at the bid of the sweater 

 or the nod of the autocrat, and then comes to them 

 the blessed promise of the sunset, fulfilled at a fare 

 of less than one halfpenny a mile, food included, 

 with the prospect of a full stomach, self-respect and 

 wages that, for carpenters and bricklayers, are seven 

 hundred per cent, improvement on those paid in 

 Naples, and this with little more than two-thirds of 

 the working hours. Mr Sinclair has told us with 

 horrid candour that the promise of the sunset is 

 piecrust, but let us hope that the gruesome truths 

 of The Jungle are overdrawn ! 



Saloon, second-class, steerage and ship's com. 



