The pacific endeavors of the high cost of living are greatly aided by the
natural kindliness of the people. I think I have never met simpler charity
to strangers. For instance, in the little matter of appealing for street
directions, I found the shawled women and the pale men would go far out of
their ways to put me on the right path. Even when I inquired for the home
of Dennis McCullough, they looked at me quickly, said: "Oh, you mean the
big Sinn Feiner"? and readily directed me to his home.
In the red brick home in the red brick row on the outskirts of the red
brick town of Belfast, Mrs. Dennis McCullough, daughter of the south of
Ireland, gave testimony that the goodheartedness of her neighbors prevails
over their prejudice even in time of crisis. Her husband, a piano merchant,
has been in some seven prisons for his political activities. He had told of
plank beds, of food he could not eat, of the quelling of prison outbreaks
by hosing the prisoners and then letting them lie in their wet clothes on
cold floors. He had spoken of evading prison at one time by availing
himself of the ancient privilege of "taking sanctuary": he went to the
famous pilgrimage center of Lough Derg, and though no sanctuary law
prevails, the military did not care or dare to violate the religious
feelings of the inhabitants by seizing him there. And then he had told of
the last time: before his last arrest he had taken great care not to
provoke the authorities because Mrs. McCullough was about to give birth to
her first child; but one evening when the couple and friends were seated
about a quiet Sunday evening tea table, six constables entered and hurried
him off to jail without even presenting a warrant. It was at this point
that Mrs. McCullough gave her testimony:
"Our house is just a little island of Sinn Fein in this district. The
neighbors knew my husband had been arrested. The papers told them that the
arrests had been made in connection with that Jules Verne German submarine
plot. But when my baby was born, my neighbors forgot everything but the
fact that I was a human being who needed help. One neighbor came in to bake
my bread; another to sweep my house; another to cook my meals. They were
very good.
"Often at five o'clock, I watch the girls coming home from the mills. At
six o'clock they eat supper. At seven the boys and girls walk out together,
two by two." Mrs. McCullough laughed. "You know, I think that's all I have
against the Ulsterites--there's nothing queer about them."
By the grate, Dennis McCullough held the baby in his arms with all the care
one uses towards a treasure long withheld. His drawn white face was close
to the dimpled cheeks.
The rank and file of the Belfastians, then, are joining the priests,
co-operationists, labor unionists and Sinn Feiners in their fight for
self-determination. For it is believed that as long as the Irish people,
Irish or Scotch-Irish, remain under the domination of England, they will
continue to suffer under exploitation by her capitalists. And the people of
the north and the south are unanimous that English exploitation is what's
the matter with Ireland.
[Footnote 1: Census of 1911.]
[Footnote 2: England passed an order in 1919 regulating the wages of
sweated women workers so that the minimum wage of a girl 18 working a
48-hour week amounts to $6.72. But the order concludes: "_This order
shall have effect in all districts of Great Britain but not in
Ireland_." (Ministry of Labor. Statutory Rules and Orders. 1919. No.
357.)]
[Footnote 3: "Report Chief Medical Inspector, Belfast, 1909."]
[Footnote 4: _Belfast Telegraph_, May 15, 1919.]
[Footnote 5: _Northern Whig_, Belfast, May 17, 1919.]
[Footnote 6: _Ibid_.]
[Footnote 7: _Belfast Telegraph_, May 15, 1919.]