THE EMIGRANT SHIP.

On a summer's day, some years ago, business brought me to one of the wharves of this city, at the moment when a ship from Liverpool had just arrived, with some two hundred and fifty emigrants, men, women, and children, chiefly Irish. Much as I had heard and read of the condition of many of the poor passengers, I never fully realized their distresses until I personally witnessed them.

Under the most favorable circumstances, the removal of families from the land of their birth is attended by many painful incidents. About to embark upon a long and perilous voyage, to seek the untried hospitalities of a stranger soil, the old landmarks and associations which the heartstrings grasp with a cruel tenacity are viewed through the mist of tears and agony.

The old church—the weather-worn homestead—the ancient school house, the familiar play ground, and more sadly dear than all, the green graveyard, offer a mute appeal "more eloquent than words." But when to these afflictions of the heart are added the pangs of physical suffering and privation; when emigrants, in embarking, embark their all in the expenses of the voyage, and have no hope, even for existence, but in a happy combination of possible chances; when near and dear ones must be left behind, certainly to suffer, and probably to die,—the pangs of separation embrace all that can be conceived of agony and distress.

The emigrant ship whose arrival we witnessed had been seventy odd days from port to port. Her passengers were of the poorest class. Their means had been nearly exhausted in going from Dublin to Liverpool, and in endeavors to obtain work in the latter city, previous to bidding a reluctant but eternal farewell to the old country. They came on board worn out—wan—the very life of many dependent on a speedy passage over the Atlantic. In this they were disappointed. The ship had encountered a succession of terrific gales; it had leaked badly, and they had been confined, a great part of the voyage, to their narrow quarters between decks, herded together in a noisome and pestilential atmosphere, littered with damp straw, and full of filth.

What marvel that disease and death invaded their ranks? One after another, many died and were launched into the deep sea. The ship entered Fayal to refit, and there that clime of endless summer proved to the emigrants more fatal than the blast of the upas-poisoned valley of Java. The delicious oranges, and the mild Pico wine, used liberally by the passengers, sowed the seeds of death yet more freely among their ranks. On the passage from Fayal, the mortality was dreadful, but at length, decimated and diseased, the band of emigrants arrived at Boston.

It was a summer's day—but no cheering ray of light fell upon the spires of the city. The sky was dark and gloomy; the bay spread out before the eye like a huge sheet of lead, and the clouds swept low and heavily over the hills and house tops.

After the vessel was moored, all the passengers who were capable of moving, or of being moved, came up or were brought up on deck. We scanned their wan and haggard features with curiosity and pity.

Here was the wreck of an athletic man. His eyes, deep-sunken in their orbits, were nearly as glassy as those of a corpse; his poor attire hung loosely on his square shoulders. His matted beard rendered his sickly, greenish countenance yet more wan and livid. He crawled about the deck alone—his wife and five children, they for whom he had lived and struggled, for whose sake he was making a last desperate exertion, had all been taken from him on the voyage. We addressed him some questions touching his family.

"They are all gone," said he, "the wife and the childer. The last one—the babby—died this mornin'—she lies below. They're best off where they are."

In another place sat a shivering, ragged man, the picture of despair. A few of his countrymen, who had gathered round him, offered him some food. He might have taken it eagerly some days before. Now he gazed on vacancy, without noticing their efforts to induce him to take some nourishment. Still they persevered, and one held a cooling glass of lemonade to his parched lips.

Seated on the after hatchway was a little boy who had that morning lost both his parents. He shed no tear. Familiarity with misery had deprived him of that sad consolation.

We passed on to a group of Irishmen gathered round an old gray-haired man lying at length upon the forward deck. One of them was kneeling beside him.

"Father, father!" said he, earnestly, "rouse up, for the love of Heaven. See here—I've brought ye some porridge—tak a sup ov it—it will give ye heart and life."

"Sorrow a bit of life's left in the old man any how. Lave him alone, Jamie."

"Lift him ashore," said the mate—"he wants air."

The dying man was carefully lifted on the wharf, and laid down upon a plank. His features changed rapidly during the transit. His head now fell back—the pallid hue of death invaded his lips—his lower jaw relaxed—the staring eyeballs had no speculation in them—a slight shudder convulsed his frame. The son kneeled beside him; closed his eyes—it was all over. And there, in the open air, with no covering to shield his reverend locks from the falling rain, passed away the soul of the old man from its earthly tabernacle.

The hospital cart arrived. Busy agents lifted into it, with professional sang froid, crippled age and tottering childhood. But all the spectators of this harrowing scene testified, by their expressions, sympathy and sorrow, one low-browed ruffian alone excepted.

"Serves 'em right d—— n—— 'em!" said he, savagely. "Why don't they stay at home in their own country, and not come here to take the bread out of honest people's mouths?"

Honest, quotha? If ever "flat burglary" and "treason dire" were written on a man's face, it stood out in staring capitals upon that Cain-like brow.

But there were lights as well as shadows to the picture. Out of that grim den of death, out of that floating lazar house, there came a few blooming maidens and stalwart youths, like fair flowers springing from the rankness of a charnel. Their sorrows were but for the misfortunes of others; and even these were a while forgotten in the joy of meeting near and dear relatives, and old friends upon the shore of the promised land. They went their way rejoicing, and with them passed the solitary ray of sunshine that streamed athwart the dark horrors of the emigrant ship, like the wandering pencil of light that sometimes visits the condemned cell of a prison.