The Irish standard., 1899-09-09
The Old Town Dull by Day and
Dark by Night.
POVERTY WAS VISIBLE EVERYWHERE
Signs of Wealth and Prosperity
Also Witnessed.

A New York traveller gives his inn
pressions of Cork in letter to White
law Reid's Tribune under the initials OF
1. N. F. Among other things he says:
Probably during a residence OF over
four years in London my ears have
grown accustomed to rising intonations
and drawing tones, and for this reason
the brogue suddenly heard in Cork
seemed home-like. Certainly l have
had to pinch myself in order to be con-
vinced that I was not back in New
York listening to the newsboys' cries or
buttonholing a municipal statesman in
CITY Hall Park. With this music in the
air as have strolled through the streets
of the city and gone far aheld into the
country, the years since last caught
glimpse of Sandy Hook have been "a
mist that rolled away"
The ears, not the eyes, minister to
this home-like feeling Of an old New
Yorker. Outwardly there is no resem-
blance between the two cities Cork
has only two broad streets and one "bit
of a boulevard" but is network of
curving and zigzag lanes without
high building anywhere in sight except
the English Cathedral There are ap-
pie stands at every corner, and electric
cars are trundling noisily through
streets which are neither we'll paved nor
systematically cleaned; but the town is
dull by day and dark at night, and is
shadowed at all times by abject poverty
such as is seldom witnessed in the Old
World and never in America.
At the Roman Catholic Cathedral
Aug. 13 admission to the main body of
the nave at midday service was reserved
for decently dressed worshippers who
could pay penny at the door as an
entrance fee. The aisles were opened
without charge to swarm of men,
women and children in rags. Hundreds
of them were in bare feet, and all OF
them we're dirty and frowsy. I have
never seen so many signs of squalor and
hopeless extremity in any other Eu-
ropean town. That was characteristic
revelation of the poverty Of Cork; and
there were similar side shows at every
turning OF the narrow lanes where the
working people lived in direst penury,
with their children in rags swarming in
the cutters.
There are signs Of wealth and pros
perity as we'll as of poverty in this old
Irish town. The English cathedral is
splendid structure, with three lofty
spires; the courthouse is we'll de-
signed and spacious building; there are
broad quays on the river front; there is
a. beautiful college green, and there is
the elm shaded Mardyke Walk, which
Thackeray admired as genuine bit OF
rus in urbe The scenic setting of the
city, moreover, with the double armed
river and the environment of verdant
hillside and meadow, is lovely. There
is also an undertone of rollicking good
humor and vivacity in the life of the
!, town. When all these generalizations
have been made, the deepest impression
which the visitor receives is one of the
pathos of Irish history. The mass of
the Irish people seem to be poorer here
than in any continental city, and their
lives are narrower, their prospects more
hopeless.
When one goes afeld in County
Cork, there is similar evidence Of the
exhaustion of Irish resources. The
stone cabins by the roadside are small
and unfit for habitation. There are no
flowers in the dooryards. The poorest
English farm cottage has its roses
blooming in the windows and it's door
way bordered with ivy. The Irish cot
tager has neither hollyhocks nor sun
flowers to brighten the front of his
home; the walls may be whitewashed,
but the roof needs mending and the
woodwork has gone unpainted for
years, and the patches of potatoes and
cabbage behind the house and the
focks of chickens and geese in front OF
it show how scanty are the resources
for feeding the brood of children with
in. An English road is the poor mans
pleasure ground, which he helps to keep
in order by his own tidiness and pains
taking care in using it Alright. An Irish
country road is acommon where horses,
cows, sheep, geese and goats are turned
loose, because there is not room for
them on the cottager's own land, and