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But the emigration to Canada was
left to the individual greed of shipowners, and the emigrant-ships
rivalled the cabins of Mayo or the fever-sheds of Skibbereen. Crowded
and filthy, carrying double the legal number of passengers, who were
ill-fed and imperfectly clothed, and having no doctor on board, the
holds, says an eyewitness, were like the Black Hole of Calcutta, and
deaths occurred in myriads. The survivors, on their arrival in the new
country, continued to die and to scatter death around them.
At Montreal, during nine weeks, eight hundred emigrants perished, and
over nine hundred residents died of diseases caught from emigrants.
During six months the deaths of the new arrivals exceeded three
thousand. No preparations were made by the British Government for the
reception or the employment of these helpless multitudes. The _Times_
pronounced the neglect to be an eternal disgrace to the British name.
Ships carrying German emigrants and English emigrants arrived in Canada
at the same time in a perfectly healthy state.


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