Listen to the Winds, O God the Reader, that wail across the whip-cords stretched taut on broken human hearts; listen to the Bones, the bare bleached bones of slaves, that line the lanes of Seven Seas and beat eternal tom-toms in the forests of the laboring deep; listen to the Blood, the cold thick blood that spills its filth across the fields and flowers of the Free; listen to the Souls that wing and thrill and weep and scream and sob and sing above it all. What shall these things mean, O God the Reader? You know. You know. FOOTNOTES [1] In the fifties it was customary for the merchants, etc., to have posted at their door a list of help wanted. Many of these help wanted signs were accompanied by another which read “No Irish need apply.” During the Civil War there was an Anti-Draft song with a refrain to the effect that when it came to drafting they did not practice “No Irish need apply.” [2] “Americans only” in a real estate advertisement today usually means “No Jews need apply.” It sometimes means Irish (i. e., Catholic) also. [3] Wm. J. Bromwell, _History of Immigration to United States_, p. 96. [4] _Ibid._, p. 100. [5] _Ibid._, p. 116. [6] _Ibid._, p. 124. [7] _Commercial Relations of the United States_, 1885-1886, Appendix III, p. 1967. [8] “The Commissioners for Ireland gave them orders upon the governors of garrisons, to deliver to them prisoners of war; upon the keepers of gaols, for offenders in custody; upon masters of workhouses, for the destitute in their care ‘who were of an age to labor, or if women were marriageable and not past breeding’; and gave directions to all in authority to seize those who had no visible means of livelihood, and deliver them to these agents of the Bristol sugar merchants, in execution of which latter direction Ireland must have exhibited scenes in every part like the slave hunts in Africa. How many girls of gentle birth have been caught and hurried to the private prisons of these man-catchers none can tell. Messrs. Sellick and Leader, Mr. Robert Yeomans, Mr. Joseph Lawrence, and others, all of Bristol, were active agents. As one instance out of many: Captain John Vernon was employed by the Commissioners for Ireland, into England, and contracted in their behalf with Mr. David Sellick and Mr. Leader under his hand, bearing date the 14th September, 1653, to supply them with two hundred and fifty women of the Irish nation above twelve years, and under the age of forty-five, also three hundred men above twelve years of age, and under fifty, to be found in the country within twenty miles of Cork, Youghal, and Kinsale, Waterford and Wexford, to transport them into New England.” J. P. Prendergast, _The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland_, London, 1865. 2d. ed., pp. 89-90.