"The Emigration Agents Office - The Passage Money Paid" Illustrated London News.
The fare paid at an emigration agent's office in Cork in 1851 was about ú3.10.0. or $17.50 to Quebec and twice that to New York. The sum sounds small today but seemed considerable to an average working-class Irish family earning no more than one pound a week. Once the fare was paid the emigrants might be fortunate and embark immediately. But winds did not blow to schedule. Most emigrants waited a week to a month for the favourable weather that would take them to sea. While they waited they stayed in cheap hostels paying in some cases three pence a night to share a room twelve by fifteen with more than thirty peopIe.
