Subtracting six from one
hundred, we have ninety-four emigrants in the thousand dying of the
Famine as certainly as if they had died at home. Furthermore, great
numbers of those who were able to reach the interior died off almost
immediately. Sir Charles Trevelyan, the Government official, from whose
_Irish Crisis_ I take the above figures, adds these remarkable words:
"besides _still larger_ numbers who died at Quebec, Montreal, and
elsewhere in the interior."[291]
89,738 emigrants embarked for Canada in 1847. One in every three of
those who arrived were received into hospital, and the deaths on the
passage or soon after arriving were 15,330, or rather more than
_seventeen_ per cent. As the deaths amongst emigrants, in ordinary
times, were about 3/4 per cent., at least sixteen per cent. of those
deaths may be set down as being occasioned by the Famine. But seventeen
per cent., high as it seems, does not fully represent the mortality
amongst the Famine emigrants. Speaking of those who went to Canada in
1847, Dr. Stratten says: "Up to the 1st of November, one emigrant in
every seven had died; and during November and December there have been
many deaths in the different emigrant hospitals; so that it is
understating the mortality to say that one person in every five was dead
by the end of the year.
Pages:
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803