144 
STATE AGKICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 
is but the faintest hope of escape. The worst of it is, the very poverty 
they would escape renders emigration impossible. Under these cir¬ 
cumstances, it is gratifying to find that they have learned the value of as¬ 
sociation, by means of which, from time to time, one and another of their 
number is enabled to make his way to the land of promise. The plan is this : 
A large number of the poor people anxious to go to America form a club, 
with the agreement that at certain intervals, each will pay into the common 
treasury so many pence; and when the total of the contributions amounts to 
a sufficient sum to pay the passage of one person, all the members cast lots to 
determine whose the precious boon shall be. In this way, hundreds of the 
industrious yeomanry of 4merica have reached her shores. 
Multitudes of persons, old men and women, young men and maidens, are 
seen gathering in from every quarter of southern Ireland in the hope of find- 
ingroom in the steerage of the ship whose coming I also, await. Probably 
more than half of them will have to wait for another chance. Some of them 
are fine specimens of the Celtic man, and all are buoyant with hope. Thank 
God for a spot of earth somewhere under the all-embracing heavens, whose 
priceless boon of the privilege to be all one’s powers will enable him to be¬ 
come is freely offered to the poor and oppressed of every land. Under 
wise and equal laws, framed and administered in the spirit of a genuine 
Christian philanthropy, the Emerald Isle could soon be made to blossom as the 
rose. Is it not a most melancholy fact, that the reason it does not is large¬ 
ly found in the injustice of a nation which claims to be at once the most 
powerful and the most Christian on earth ? * * * * 
Ship ahoy ! A noble ship steams up in view. Queenstown is all alive. 
Hundreds of eagar eyes are strained to see if it comes to bear the forms of 
loved ones to the far-off land. Mine also are strained. “ City of Baltimore ! ” 
“ City of Baltimore ! ” is the cry, and the bustle increases. Friends about to 
be separated stand nearer to each other, grasp hands and look more deeply 
and anxiously into the swimming eye. Will the soul of which these are the 
windows be ever true, though the ocean roll between and long years, aye a 
life-time, pass without a reunion ? Will the sun of prosperity shine ever up¬ 
on the departing ones ? and how will it fare with the poverty stricken and 
sorrowing parents, brothers, sisters, and lovers left behind ? * ■» * 
But time and tide wait not for adieus The tug is at the wharf. The bag¬ 
gage of all is aboard. The embraces have ended, and the sun of hope, re¬ 
vived and re-HSSured, has dried up the fountain of tears. The steadied 
voices of two hundred emigrants call out the last good bye with ringing 
cheery note, while as many hats and handkerchiefs, half sadly and half gladly, 
wave their adieus to the loved ones on shore. 
Good bve, say I, also. Good bye to Erin, land of crushed hearts and hopes. 
May the God of mercy and of justice bless thee with the early recovery and 
wisest use of thy long-lost liberty and independance ! * * * * 
It is perhaps useless to say, that in these fragmentary notes,! have only pre¬ 
sented a sketchy outline of ihe field of my observations ; It being my purpose 
whenever the State shall have resumed the publication of the Society’s Transac¬ 
tions, to embody all important facts and conclusions in such practical papers 
therefor as shall be deemed of interest to the industrial public of this coun¬ 
try. As I shall probably report at some length on the Great Exhibition, as 
Commissioner, I shall be excused for the brevity of the allusions to it in the 
foregoing memoranda. While my obsevations in other lands have had the 
effect to confirm original convictions of the superiority of our own civil in¬ 
stitutions, they have no less thoroughly satisfied me of the fact that, in most 
branches of industry and in many departments of national admnistration and 
social life, we have yet very much to learn from the Old World. 
J. W. HOYT. 
State Agricultural Rooms, Dec., 1862 . 
