Alas for the rosy dreams
of opulence! Here was a prosaic place where toil and sweat were the
condition of mere existence. As the poor creatures had no means of
moving on, they huddled in the ports of arrival. Almshouses were
filled, beggars wandered in every street, and these peasants
accustomed to the soil and the open country were congested in the
cities, unhappy misfits in an entirely new economic environment.
Unskilled in the handicrafts, they were forced to accept the lot of
the common laborer. Fortunately, the great influx came at the time of
rapid turnpike, canal, and railroad expansion. Thousands found their
way westward with contractors' gangs. The free lands, however, did not
lure them. They preferred to remain in the cities. New York in 1850
sheltered 133,000 Irish. Philadelphia, Boston, New Orleans,
Cincinnati, Albany, Baltimore, and St. Louis, followed, in the order
given, as favorite lodging places, and there was not one rapidly
growing western city, such as Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, and
Chicago, that did not have its "Irish town" or "Shanty town" where the
immigrants clung together.
Their brogue and dress provoked ridicule; their poverty often threw
them upon the community; the large percentage of illiteracy among them
evoked little sympathy; their inclinations towards intemperance and
improvidence were not neutralized by their great good nature and
open-handedness; their religion reawoke historical bitterness; their
genius for politics aroused jealousy; their proclivity to unite in
clubs, associations, and semi-military companies made them the objects
of official suspicion; and above all, their willingness to assume the
offensive, to resent instantly insult or intimidation, brought them
into frequent and violent contact with their new neighbors.
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