Deirdre in the Street (verse)
Letts, W. M.
October 7, 1925 THE COMMONWEAL 529 serious as it is in England nor in the six counties of the north of Ireland. In Dublin, at the end of August, the Minister of Finance for Ulster asked...
...I met university teachers and members of the religious orders—and I found no one who expressed any serious disaffection toward the present government...
...In Dublin, at the end of August, the Minister of Finance for Ulster asked the Belfast House of Commons to authorize an additional grant of 750,000 pounds sterling, for the unemployment fund...
...Here at my elbow with soft Tiurried speech She urged her wares...
...Only last March, a similar sum was voted, and it was believed that it would be sufficient to finance the "doles"—that is, the allowances made to the unemployed...
...I met priests and laymen from the west...
...I was interested particularly in the statistics of tuberculosis...
...Through the kindness of the President's office, I had an introduction to the Irish health authorities...
...Proudly she walked like women from the hills, Her basket full of early daffodils...
...A dozen years ago when I was last in Ireland, I traveled to various parts of the country with the Lord and Lady Lieutenant—the Marquis and Marchioness of Aberdeen...
...There is no doubt at all in the minds of people of all classes, that the government has accomplished marvelous results under almost impossible conditions...
...Health depends more on nutrition than on any other single factor...
...It begins to look as though economic factors might make successfully for the reunion of the two parts of Ireland, for it has often been said that no part of Ulster anatomy is quite so sensitive as the pocketbook nerve...
...T)eirdre in the Street Deirdre is dead and all her beauty blown Like wind-swept petals underneath the thorn...
...That is considerably less than one-third as much as has had to be provided for Ulster...
...Health is one of the best indices of the economic condition of a country...
...It is indeed hard to take the scattered remnants of an Ireland, which, after the trying days of the world war, had to go through the Black and Tan times, and the succeeding political troubles and make it into a united whole again...
...But Ireland for the Irish seems coming into her own at last...
...I talked with Dublin lawyers, physicians, merchants and workmen...
...In the Free State, it has been found necessary to advance during this same period, only about a million and a quarter pounds sterling to the unemployment insurance fund...
...The fact that they are meeting with success is very definite evidence that, in spite of immense difficulties to be encountered by the government, the task is not impossible and the outlook is quite promising...
...I found the health authorities thoroughly alive to the opportunities for the improvement of health, and I feel sure that they are accomplishing all that is possible under the circumstances...
...This is a sure sign that Ireland is getting back to normal...
...This is not merely a question of poverty and of hard living conditions over here, for the lowest death-rates from the disease among our foreign peoples occur among the Jews and the Italians, who, in our large cities, have on the average, no better living conditions than the Irish...
...Tuberculosis is so universal an affection that, as the Germans are justified in saying, "we are all a little tuberculous...
...If beauty dies, then beauty is new-born, And Deirdre met me in the street today, Her hair like blackbirds' breasts, her shadowed eyes Like hazel circled pools beneath grey skies...
...Altogether, over four million and a quarter pounds sterling have been advanced to the unemployment insurance fund—or over one million pounds per year since the Belfast parliament came into existence...
...I spoke on tuberculosis in connection with their interest in sanatoriums and preventoriums, and the fresh air movement for the homes...
...The two main industries, the linen trade and ship building, are suffering from acute depression, and no wonder the Finance Minister declared that "the position as we see it today (in the six counties) could hardly be worse...
...Deirdre is dead and beauty, like a smoke, Passes its phantom way into the air...
...The outlook is not promising there, for the number of wholly unemployed has increased 10,000 in the last six months...
...It is quite literally true that health is a purchasable commodity, and that any nation can have the health it wishes if it is willing to pay for it...
...And in this dreary place I looked upon a princess face to face...
...Backed by a hoarding fierce with garish bills, Deirdre stood crying—"Buy the daffodils...
...W. M. Letts...
...Lowering of nutrition always decreases resistive vitality, especially to the tubercle bacillus...
...Ireland before the war had been lessening her tuberculous death-rate very strikingly...
...The mortality of the Irish people in America from the disease is almost the highest that we have...
...The war disturbed health conditions, particularly with regard to tuberculosis, in all the countries of Europe...
...There are still lines of young people waiting their turn to emigrate, and artificial selection still works to take away from the Irish population some of its best elements...
...Ireland's death-rate from tuberculosis was very high compared with that of other countries...
...There has been distinct improvement in the decrease of tuberculosis since the war—especially in the last two years...
...Only the Negro, I believe, presents a higher tuberculous death-rate than that of Americans born in Ireland...
...But other women are as young and fair...
...but it is comparatively easy to resist it if nutrition is maintained...
...Men whom I knew had the best interests of Ireland at heart, assured me that they thought the government was doing wonderfully well with the extremely difficult task they had in hand...
Vol. 2 • October 1925 • No. 22
