IMMIGRATION—NO. IV.

Evening Star, Issue 3220, 16 June 1873, Page 3

IMMIGRATION—NO. IV.

To the EdUvx(3iß,r—Considering that the Surgeon Superintendent of an emigrant ship ought to be invested with full control and be held strictly responsible, all those who hare to attend upon the emigrants ought to be under hi,s orders. For this reason, I think it would be much better if the New Zealand Government were themselves to engage and pay the emigrants’ cook, baker, and purser. The third mate generally acts as purser, and, being quite unaccustomed to, the work, he takes, in all probability, twice as long to distribute the rations as a skilled persoh would. It would be no more expense for the New Zealand Government to engage pay these officials directly, than to pay them indirectly, as they now must do. It would be a great advantage to have these people all under the surgeon’s ordpps, as hardly a day passes without some complaint or dispute arising, which the surgeon is obliged, under the present system, to refer to the captain. One of the questions that most urgently demands the attention of the Government is the berthing of the married people. The present system is horribly indecent, and ought to have been altered long ago, or a ther ought never to have been adopted. If married couples cannot bo brought out in a more decent fashion, they ought not to be brought out at all. What must be the feelings of a respectable married woman when she finds her berth is open on both sides to her neighbours, and that above her or below her, as the cass ipay bp, another tier of berths • that all the qjocup’anta of these'berths have to e£t, and sleep in one Common mpo I The whole arrangement is spandalquSj and a disgrace both to the Emigration Commissioners at Home and to the Colonies. It would be impossible to discuss the subject in all its bearings m a newspaper, but I trust the attention of the Government will be attracted to this matter, and that some plan will be adopted of giving cabins to married couples and theirfamilies. I cannot see why the berths should nearly all he athwart ship. Everybody whp has been to Rpa knows that this is a most uncomfortable position, and that there is no possibility of sleeping when the head is down to leeward, The discomfort occasioned in the Channel by this arrangement of the berths is enormous. It appears to me that by putting the berths the lengthwise of the ship, with intervals for tables, &c., between the foot of one row of berths and the head of another, there would be far better ventilation, and thus berths would be more easily kept clean. There is another matter to which I wish, to draw particular attention before I conclude these letters. I mean the rules for the management the single women on board these emigrant ships. The rules at present are extremfely stringent, and, I venture to say, never have been and never will be strictly observed. On no Acoount an the single women to be allowed to

speak to any of the officers or crew of the ship, or to any of the male passengers. Now, why not? What haini is there in a young woman speaking to a young man—or vice versa f But, then, experienced people say that they would be making love to each other. Of course they would, and again I ask, why not? Where would be the harm of a little love-making, if kept within, the bounds of strict propriety? The girls should not be allowed to go forward, of course, but I see no harm if any of the young men whom the girls liked to ask were allowed on the poop in the day time. I have travelled eight times across the Atlantic —six times in the Royal Mail steamers ; and the only time among all those voyages when I saw no flirtations going on among the saloon passengers was once in the depth of winter, when there were only thirty-three of us altogether. Thirty were men ; one lady was occupied during the whole voyage in attending on a sick husband, who was returning to Europe for the benefit of his health ; another lady was sick in hor cabin nearly the whole passage, and the third was a widow with eight children ! Flirtation under sueh circumstances was nearly impossible, as the stewardess was at least fifty I But I have seen an amount of spooning going on in those royal mail steamers, especially among young ladies going out to be married, which would rather astonish some people. At any rate, the advice I would give to any gentleman who has left a “ beloved object” at Home, and who contemplates sending for her, is—Don’t; go Home and fetch her, or, if you cannot do that, break off the affair. This is a digression perhaps, but what I want to show is that you cannot expect a number of young women to conduct themselves as if they were nuns, when they never had and never professed any desire for a conventual life. They will talk to the sailors in spite of everything that can be done, and they will write letters, if they cannot talk, to the single men. The married women carry the letters backwards and forwards between the forecastle and the poop. As for any doctor on earth, if he had the eyes of Argus, ever circumventing forty or fifty young women, bent on flirtation —I defy hitn ! On board the Charlotte Gladstone a love affair went on under my very nose, with the cognisance of all the saloon passengers (my own family included), which ended in the marriage of the parties the day after they landed, and of which affair I had not the faintest suspicion 1 There can be no reason why the single women should be restrained from speaking to men on board ship.; that has not equal force on shore, and no one would think of making such a rule on shore. If the young women are properly selected and respectable, as they ought to be, there can be no necessity for rules which must tend to make emigration to New Zealand unpopular among the very class most required here.—l am, &c., R. H. Bakewbll, M.D. Belgrave Chambers, Princes street, June 14.