Famous Irishmen:
I noticed D'Arcy McGee on your list. The story seems to hold up in his case. Here's a bit of background on him:
"Thomas D'Arcy McGee, author and journalist, who, on account of his participation in the "Young Ireland' movement, was forced to leave his native land, in disguise, and take refuge in America. In 1850, after he had made a home for his wife at Boston, Mass., she joined him there, and they continued to live in the United States up to 1857, when Mr. McGee removed to Canada, where he was elected to Parliament, and became, in 1862, a member of the Government."
(Source:http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/confed/moc006.htm)
He also has the rare distinction of having been assassinated in Ottawa, which doesn't happen too often.
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It's customary to add a joke. How about some occasionally amusing trivia (with acknowledgement to Ed Hexter):
It May Be Hard to Believe That A Scant 100 Years Ago...
The average life expectancy in the United States was forty-seven.
Only 14 percent of the homes in the United States had a bathtub.
Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.ÿ A three minute call
from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.
There were only 8,000 cars in the US and only 144 miles of paved
roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was ten mph.
Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily
populated than California.ÿ With a mere 1.4 million residents,
California was only the twenty-first most populous state in the
Union.
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.
The average wage in the U.S. was twenty-two cents an hour.ÿ The
average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a
dentist $2500 per year, a veterinarian between $1500 and $4000
per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5000 per year.
More than 95 percent of all births in the United States took
place at home.
Ninety percent of all U.S. physicians had no college education.
Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were
condemned in the press and by the government as "substandard."
Sugar cost four cents a pound.ÿ Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
Coffee cost fifteen cents a pound.
Most women only washed their hair once a month and used borax or
egg yolks for shampoo.
Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the
country for any reason, either as travelers or immigrants.
The five leading causes of death in the U.S. were:
ÿÿÿ 1. Pneumonia and influenza
ÿÿÿ 2. Tuberculosis
ÿÿÿ 3. Diarrhea
ÿÿÿ 4. Heart disease
ÿÿÿ 5. Stroke
The American flag had 45 stars.ÿ Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico,
Hawaii and Alaska hadn't been admitted to the Union yet.
Drive-by-shootings -- in which teenage boys galloped down the
street on horses and started randomly shooting at houses,
carriages, or anything else that caught their fancy -- were an
ongoing problem in Denver and other cities in the West.
The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was thirty.ÿ The remote
desert community was inhabited by only a handful of ranchers and
their families.
Plutonium, insulin, and antibiotics hadn't been discovered yet.
Scotch tape, crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't
been invented.
There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.
One in ten U.S. adults couldn't read or write.ÿ Only 6 percent of
all Americans had graduated from high school.
Some medical authorities warned that professional seamstresses
were apt to become sexually aroused by the steady rhythm, hour
after hour, of the sewing machine's foot pedals.ÿ They
recommended slipping bromide -- which was thought to diminish
sexual desire -- into the woman's drinking water.
Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the
counter at corner drugstores.ÿ According to one pharmacist,
"Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind,
regulates the stomach and the bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect
guardian of health.
Coca-Cola contained cocaine instead of caffeine.
Punch card data processing had recently been developed, and early
predecessors of the modern computer were used for the first time
by the government to help compile the 1900 census.
Eighteen percent of households in the United States had at least
one full-time servant or domestic.
There were about 230 reported murders in the U.S. annually. |
