OUR IMMIGRANTS.

Evening Star, Issue 3504, 16 May 1874, Page 2

OUR IMMIGRANTS.

To the Editor, Sir, — I am one of those unhappy mortals whom you IS! ew Zealand gentlemen so euphoniously and courteously term “ new chnms ” having recently arrived in this Colony from London. I notice that you are somewhat exercised in spirit about the class of immigrants you receive here. Let me give you my experience of some of them. Although ,1 paid my own fare, I was inexperienced enough to take my passage in a ship which was chartered to bring out some 200 or 300 free emigrants to this place ; and during the voyage I had ample reason to repent mv choice. • J On going on board at Gravesend, the first thing that attracted my attention was the evidently inferior class of men and women who had received free passages to this Colony. In the married quarters there were many men who must have been upwards of 8 / ea ™ a 8 e < R Q d who were quite unut for labor of any description. Some of them were worn out soldiers—the most useless conceivable specimens of the genus homo. One of ' them told me he had been a pensioner for twenty-one years ! His ambition was to make his fortune as “a warehouse watchman,;orsomething else of

a light kind,” As a matter of course these elderly gentlemen' had a large following of olive branches— mostly under ten years of age. Then there were some younger men in an extremely delicate state of health, who had been luduced to go abroad “to save th ir lives.” Th.re was also. Illearned in due course, a sprinkling of persons who had been dismissed from the army, after bavin" been branded for bad conduct; “ and when a fellow is turned out of the. army for bad conduct,” said one o ; the. old soldiers, “by George,gyou may take it for granted that he is bad.” Then there were the “ married ” couples who, rumor affirmed, could not show their “ marriage lines not desirable aocessions to any Colony. There were men and women, too, upon whose faces the word “drunkard” was legibly written. Then came ladies who used short pipes and very foul language ; and, lastly, ladies who were bound to increase tbe number of souls on board during the voyage. Among the single men were some whom the doctor himself described ,to your Health Officers as “perfect wrecks,” and what the doctor eays to such an audience must be true. But, taken altogether, the single men were the best part of the consignment, physically. Morally, there was a heavy percentage of individuals that tfew Zealand or any 01 her place would gain by giving LIo to get rid of—young fellows of education who got into trouble . and disgrace at Homo through dissipation, and shipped out here as general laborers, but who had never done a day’s hard work in. their lives, and never intended to, if they could avoid it. Some of our single men left the Colony again in less than a week after they entered it,, taking advantage of the slight knowledge of navigation they obtained during the voyage to shin as “ able seamen, ” and so continue their ro vine. Bub for the acme of undesirable colonists, commend me to the single women. The greater part of our detachment never saw Louden at all, but were brought alongside our snip by a steamer direct from the Emerald ‘ Is ! e. They were accompanied so far by a lady who appeared to be somewhat of a religieuse { or, perhaps, she was only a philanthropist). She evidently possessed some influence over them ; but when she departed and they were left to tbe devices and desire of their own hearts, they made a perfect hell of their quarters. Out of the fifty or tixty shipped there were not more than half a dozen who could, by any stretch of charity, be classed as domestic servants. w The great majority were dirty, slatternly, obscene, and insubordinate; and my heart bled for the few respectable girls who had been beguiled into coming out * in company with them. Indeed, three young women, before the vessel finally heaved anchor, insisted on being put on shore, and eventually succeeded in getting off. During the voyage tnese single women made the lives of the captain and the doctor bitter to them. Those officials were, on an average, engaged for two hours every day in endeavoring to arbitrate in their quarrels. Some of them had to be put in confinement. Many of them had their rations stopped* but the sailors rendered this punishment inoperative by coming to the rescue with their own food; and not only that, but some of the sailors, more susceptible to female attractions than their comrades, actually broached Che cargo, and supplied their inamoratas with hats, feathers, figs, marmalade, Ac. These things tbe ladies graciously accepted, and in return became informers against the poor idiots who had loved “not wisely, but too well. ” Then the young ladies, through infringing the regulations with regard to lamps, nearly set the ship on fire when we were some 3,000 miles out at sea. And now, to all appearances, some of them are swelling the ranks of a certain class, which, if report speaks true, is already too numerous in Dunedin. But the time would fail me to say all that ought to be said about the people you are paying heavily to saddle yourselves with. I am no prophet, but for all that 1 venture to affirm that in five or six years you will have workhouses and poor-rates, a stronger police force, and increased gaol accommodation—and require them ail too, if you continue to receive the same class of persons as is being sent out now. The remedy for all this is : make the emigrants pay something beforehand for their voyage out. The more money a man pays, as a rule, the more respectable and useful ho will be. Better have a smaller number of good men and good women, than a large influx of pauperised and pauperising scum. The future welfare of New Zealand is deeply concerned in this question, and I long to. see the fatal policy that is now in operation reversed.—l am, &c., A. B, Dunedin, May 16.