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Archiver > NY-IRISH > 2002-03 > 1015980683


From: Pat Connors <>
Subject: [NY IRISH] more of John Hughes article...
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 16:51:23 -0800


from the Urbanites website, continuation of the Draft Riots...

The riot leaders went back to their neighborhoods, and the violence
melted away. The riot saddened the dying archbishop; he felt he had
failed as a prelate. His friend and loyal subordinate, Bishop
McCloskey, was saying the prayers for the dying when the end came for
Hughes on January 3, 1864.

He had not failed, of course. The Draft Riots of 1863 were the death
rattle of a destructive culture that was giving way to something
constructive and edifying.

Though just 30 or 40 years before, New Yorkers had viewed the Irish as
their criminal class, by the 1880s and 1890s the Irish proportion of
arrests for violent crime had dropped from 60 percent to less than 10
percent. The Irish were the pillars of the criminal justice system.
Three-quarters of the police force was Irish. The Irish were the
prosecutors, the judges, and the jailers.



My comments: I will finish this article tomorrow. I hope it has effect
others like it has me. While I was grew up in NY, went all through
Catholic school, I don't remember hearing anything about John Hughes.
He should certainly be remember on St. Patrick's Day. We Irish have
much to thank him for...

PS Today I bought a wonderful book on Naturalizations. After this
article I will be posting about naturalization records available for
NYS.

--
Pat Connors, Sacramento CA
http://www.connorsgenealogy.com
All outgoing mail virus free,
scanned by Norton 2002



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