The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1884-10-16
Two Travellers.

OF course you have all heard of Castle
Garden, in New \ DIRK. Now, when you
say garden you think of neatly kept
paths, and bright flowers nodding at
you as you pass, and bees aud butter
! flies dying from flower to flower. How
! disappointed YOU would be when YOU
| looked at Castle Garden! 1t is a shabby
! building, and such q queer shape
round-built on the battery. Years ago
| it was fort; afterwards it was put to
various uses. A reception was given to
! General Lafayette in this building, ard
| it was here the great singer, Jenny
| Lind, sang when she came to New York,
Now the immigrants is, the Door
people who come in big ships from
! Europe and other foreign countries
are landed there. You know these peo-
! pie have no homes in this country, and
| some of them have no friends.
There are people authorized to care
| for them and send them where thew
want to go. Sometimes they expect to
| buy land and build houses out West,
and support themselves by working on
| farms. Sometimes they come here and
stay in Castle Garden until they are
! hired to work by some one. Everything
! is done to make them comfortable. But
the most surprising immigrants who
come to this country are the little chill
| dren who come all alone; that is, with
out father or mother or big brothers or
sisters TO look ter them.
The parents of these children have
not money enough to pay the fare for
themselves and for their children, so
they leave their children at their old
homes with the grandmother or some
other relation, and then they come to
| this country, and earn money enough
to make home and pay the passage of
the children.
When the relatives in Europe get the
letters telling when and how to send
the children, they tie card on the;
children's neck, on which is written the
address of the new home, take them to
the ship, and they sail for the strange
country, and when they land sometimes
the father or mother meets them at
Castle Garden. You can Just imagine
how the children feel when they meet
their father and mother.
But sometimes when they land at
New York they have only gone part of
the journey to their home. Last week
two children, a brother and sister,
landed at Castle Garden. The boy was
ten years old and the girl was four.
Their father and mother had come to
this country, and left these children at
their old home in Ireland, three years
ago, and only now had place to shell
ter them, out in Dakota. These chill
dren stood side by side in the crowd;
their faces were not very clean, and they
looked very frightened: such a hurry
and such pushing and scolding were
enough to frighten big folks. Not one
familiar face! 1t was very warm, the
room they were in was not over-clean,
and every one was too busy to notice
the two little children who huddled to-
gether close to the wall. After awhile
"a man discovered these two homcsick,
frightened children. They did not
know where they were going, but he
looked at the card and put them on the
boat that would take them to the cars
Before you read this, no doubt these
two little ones have reached the little
home out in Dakota. How glad they
are to get there you can well imagine.
Three years away from your mother!
Think of it! While you are reading
this. think that little girl is in her
mothers lap, and the boy sits on the
doorstep beside his father, telling all
the things that happened on that long
journey from Ireland to Dakota. -
Christian Union.