The Irish standard., 1903-09-19
Narrowing Statistics Given and Startling
Revelations Made by the
Bishop of Waterford.
Says That for Every Hundred Irishmen
Living in Ireland There are Sixty
Living in America.

y most important conference, organ
lied by the Anti-cmigration society,
wns held in the Exhibition Hall, Cork,
for the purpose of taking into consid.
Grafton the question of emigration
from the country, says the Dublin
Irish People. The Most Rev. DIR. Shcc-
ham, Bishop of Waterford and Lis
more presided. \ letter from Michael
Davtt was read in which he sug-
gcstrd that the society should organ
iZc IL similar conference at the worlds
fair in st. Louis next year. Such Il
conference would be certain to obtain
lrish-AmcricanS, prclatcs, and olncr
representative men. who could speak
with authority on the darker as well
as the more successful side of labor
ing life for young Irish men and wOm-
en- in Amcricn. In fact, it could
be made Il conference representative
of the Irish ut home, in Great Britain
and Australia, Il kind of informal Par
lament of the race. to consider how
best to keep the people at home to
keep Il firm grip on Ireland.
The Most Rev. Chairman, in open
ing the conference, said he had to
thank the Anti-emigrntion society for
the honor they had conferred on him
in asking him to preside over That
meeting The purpose of the meeting
was, he could not help thinking, adj
mirnbly described in Il letter which
had just been read in which il was
stated that it was mobile, national,
and difficult" They were all too fa-
miliar with the sad story of cmigra-
tion from this country, nnd it would
not be right, ana ii was certainly
not necessary, to dctain them with
any figures Oh the subject. Ii was Il
| sad thing to rccollcct that in the five
years of which they had the latest
returns 100000 of our people left the
in 19O1-;'3,G0O left, and what made
this figure the saddcr still was that
more than so per cent of this $4,000
consisted of persons from fifteen to
thirtyiivc years of age. A few days
ago he came across a statement which
was positively startling to him, and
light upon the dreadful drain of this
emigration that any other figures he
remembered to have come across. In
the year 1861 the Irish Census Com
missioncrs divided the families of Ire
land into four classes, according to
their wealth, as indicated by the sort
classes wcre:-N0. 4, families who
lived in one room-and Il hut, or some
thing like hut; No. 3, of families
who had four rooms each and under;
No. 9, OF families dwelling in houses
consisting Of from five to nine rooms;
and No. ], the highest class, all hav-
ing better class of house. Now they
would expect that Glasses Nos. and
2 would remain pretty constant, mere
ly decreasing with the general de-
crease of the population of the coun-
try, and il they looked into the figures
they would find that that was exactly
what had taken place. The number
| of these families had dwindlcd down
from loo Or Whereabouts in 1861, to
1000 or thcrcabOuts in 1901, being
much in proportion to the general de-
crcnsc of the population; but when
thcy came to deal with numbers 3
and 4-thc humber classes--thcy
would find the astounding fact that,
while of these classes there were in
Ireland in 1861, 100000 families. the
number decreased in the period be-
tween that year and 1900 to 2O2, 600;
that was to say, in 40 years $4,000
families of these classes has dsap-
prnrcd. Now. the question was what
bad become of these classes? No
doubt. some of them in the natural
course of things, disappeared at home;
but one would not be far wrong in
believing that between three and four
hundred thousand of them must have
left the country. That was a very
sad thing to contemplate, but it ap-