They Attentively Consider The
Prosperous Industry Of Others, Which Imprints In Their Minds A
Strong Desire Of Possessing The Same Advantages.
This forcible idea
never quits them, they launch forth, and by dint of sobriety, rigid
parsimony, and the most
Persevering industry, they commonly succeed.
Their astonishment at their first arrival from Germany is very
great - it is to them a dream; the contrast must be powerful indeed;
they observe their countrymen flourishing in every place; they
travel through whole counties where not a word of English is spoken;
and in the names and the language of the people, they retrace
Germany. They have been an useful acquisition to this continent, and
to Pennsylvania in particular; to them it owes some share of its
prosperity: to their mechanical knowledge and patience it owes the
finest mills in all America, the best teams of horses, and many
other advantages. The recollection of their former poverty and
slavery never quits them as long as they live.
The Scotch and the Irish might have lived in their own country
perhaps as poor, but enjoying more civil advantages, the effects of
their new situation do not strike them so forcibly, nor has it so
lasting an effect. From whence the difference arises I know not, but
out of twelve families of emigrants of each country, generally seven
Scotch will succeed, nine German, and four Irish. The Scotch are
frugal and laborious, but their wives cannot work so hard as German
women, who on the contrary vie with their husbands, and often share
with them the most severe toils of the field, which they understand
better. They have therefore nothing to struggle against, but the
common casualties of nature. The Irish do not prosper so well; they
love to drink and to quarrel; they are litigious, and soon take to
the gun, which is the ruin of everything; they seem beside to labour
under a greater degree of ignorance in husbandry than the others;
perhaps it is that their industry had less scope, and was less
exercised at home. I have heard many relate, how the land was
parcelled out in that kingdom; their ancient conquest has been a
great detriment to them, by over-setting their landed property. The
lands possessed by a few, are leased down ad infinitum, and the
occupiers often pay five guineas an acre. The poor are worse lodged
there than anywhere else in Europe; their potatoes, which are easily
raised, are perhaps an inducement to laziness: their wages are too
low, and their whisky too cheap.
There is no tracing observations of this kind, without making at the
same time very great allowances, as there are everywhere to be
found, a great many exceptions. The Irish themselves, from different
parts of that kingdom, are very different. It is difficult to
account for this surprising locality, one would think on so small an
island an Irishman must be an Irishman: yet it is not so, they are
different in their aptitude to, and in their love of labour.
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