Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1878-06-19
IMMIGRATION FROM EUROPE.
Hard Times I'm Europe Worse than
those In America-Large Arrivals
at Castle Garden-Scenesa and
Incidents at the Landing.
Correspondence of the Chicago Times

NEW YORK, June 8.-The tide of immi-
grafton has received a fresh impulse this
spring, and Castle Garden presents scene OF
activity to which it has been stranger SINCE
the year 1873 brought in the era OF hard
times. Last Wednesday fifteen hundred and
ninety-one immigrants passed muster at the
Garden, and every incoming steamer swells
the long procession of west bound pilgrims.
The commissioners of emigration told me yes
terday that at the present rate this year s i'm
migration through the port of New York
will exceed last years by forty thousand,
which means that one hundred thousand pill
grims in search of the promised land will
pass through Castle Garden this season. To-
day saw three hundred fresh arrivals de-
bark from the good ship City of Brussels.
They were sturdy lot of people. bound al
most without exception, to new Canaans In
the west, bearing in their bronzed faces the
impress of health and the fire of stalwart en-
ergy and laudable purpose. Like the most
who have gone before them this year, their
purses were generally substantial, their bone
and sinew of an excellent quality, and their
general average of excellence was very little
reduced by the admixture of the shlftless and
unenergetic elements that go to swell the
crime and pauperism OF the large cities.
About half of them were Germans, and the
rest were English and Irish IN nearly equal
proportions. | wanted to learn the causes
which have rekindled the Immigration fever,
and was given some interesting facts on this
point by the more intelligent people in the
party. All struck the same keynote, and
told nearly the same story. No lively spirit
of hopefulness inspires these increasing
crowds that flock thitherward. They know
as well as we do that times are punching,
work scarce, and wages low in this country.
They are simply trying to escape from con-
dition of things that is getting lntolerable to
a condition of things that is more tolerable.
In word, hard times abroad are driving to
our shores increasing crowds, who would once
have been drawn hither by the sunny hope OF
a happier, better rewarded life of toll.
''The workingmen in England haven't seen
such times for nigh on a hundred years, !"
said a bright young man, a glazler from Man
chester, who goes to join his brother in San
Francisco. starvation seems to look them
| all in the face. The suffering is worst in the
mining regions, but it is terrible enough in
the manufacturing districts, and the shop
keepers and small tradesmen, the country
over, were never so poor before. The people
are getting restless, because poverty grinds
them so, and they are looking for any way to
escape"
"But don't you know you can't escape hard
times by coming to American"
.'Oh, yes, we know times are hard here;
| our friends have written us that; but they
be'ant so dismal hard for poor folks as they
are in England"
| He told me the increased emigration move
ment was being talked of In England, and
everybody knew it was inspired by the grow
| ing unhapplness OF the industrial classes.
| Whole colonies, he said, are organizing in
some neighborhoods, and good proportion
| of the emigration is flowing toward New
| Zealand and Australia. Two young Irish
men of the better class of Irish farmers, who
came from potato raising corner of County
| Kerry, lust at the foot of the towering green
i L -, tk.o l1olr floh fri lob of
larney, told me they had been tenanting
small farms, and that they in common with
| the Irish peasantry had suffered greatly from
| the almost total failure of the crops last year.
"Why, we could hardly pay our rents, " they
said, ''let alone living" They promptly re-
piled, in answer to my inquiry, that the grow
| ing evils of their lot is the cause which sends
one came last year. These young men, with
their red-cheeked wives and baby apiece,
| are going to join relatives near Austin, Min
nesCta, who own snug wheat farms in that
| fine prairie region.
The German emigrants told the same story
| land, of the cherries prospects the yeomanry
see ahead, and of the increasing desire of
| many to escape to the broader land across
| the sea, where acres are cheap and the har-
| vests rich. A baker, who owned shop in
Baden, told me that, do all he could, he had
| IN three years SUNK IOQr thousand collars In
business, the accommodations he had previ-
| ously made in the same place. With the
remnant of his savings he has crossed the
| ocean, and will try his fortunes in Cincin-
natl, where he has been assured of an open
ing.
| Up the gangway and into the garden
| moved this respectable battalion of the in
coming army-the shaggy Teuton, with his
frau and childer, bearing stout little painted
boxes in lieu of handbags, mingling with
the modest, quiet looking young folk from
England, and the fuzzy bearded Hibernian
with his blooming wife or sister bearing car
petsacks-all staring wonderingly at the
| vaulted roof, the vast expanse OF the rotun-
| d. and the tables where the changers OF
money and vendors of sandwiches presided
They were first greeted by the medical IN
spector, who carefully examined them as
they entered to see if any sick had smuggled
past quarantine. Their names were then
registered as at hotel. If money or letters
awaited them they were soon put IN posses
sion of their property. If friends were out
side the newcomers were quickly put in their
charge. Clerks were on hand to write let
tiers In any European language. A restau.
rant provided them with plain food
at moderate prices. Or, if they
choose, they brought out the little
| store from their hand-chests, cut
each of the children a thick slice Of bread,
and Toasted frugally on their own provender.