The Evening Star TUESDAY, MAY 19, 1874

Evening Star, Issue 3506, 19 May 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, MAY 19, 1874

Not a few paragraphs and leading articles are occasionally to be found in the Home papers, the tendency of which is tc make people believe that, all things considered, laboring men are as well off at Home as they are here. Persons in the Colonies, of course, know this to be untrue, and probably one of the best proofs that it is so may be found in the fact that large bodies of immigrants, on their first arriving amongst us, almost invariably present a poverty-stricken, “ seedy ” appearance. At first sight this fact might seem to have but little significance, but it is really a most cogent proof of the prosperity of the Colony, and of its capability of receiving a large influx of people, and giving them all profitable employment. That the persons who come to this Colony belong to a class that is scarcely to be found permanently existing in it is abundantly proved by the fact that every batch of immigrants arriving here may be immediately distinguished from all other people by their clothes and personal appearance alone. Nobody can witness the landing of a lot of “ new chums ” without being at once struck by the fact that they belong to a class who have been subjected to life-long deprivations. Thread-bare, but carefully preserved coats and trousers of antiquated cut, bonnets and dresses that were fashionable many years ago, finery that has long ceased to be fine, all show that they belong to persons who have been accustomed to take the greatest possible care of their “best clothes,” as not knowing when or how it might fall to their lot to get new ones. A very few months or even weeks, however, suffice to change all that, and the new arrivals, freed from the restraints which poverty had so long placed them under, are able to appear as smartly dressed as any “old identity” of us all. In other words, they no longer belong to the class which are in the old country so expressively termed “ the poor.” So far, then, the statement that laborers are no better off in this country than they are at Home, is quite untrue. But if it were said that laboring men who come to this country do not reap all, or nearly all the advantages that they might, from their changed circumstances, we should be bound to acknowledge that this statement was only too true. Unfortunately, when people come here and find their former grinding poverty changed to rude abundance, they entirely throw aside their old frugal habits, and indulge without stint in the luxury which is prevalent in the Colonies. A servant girl who at Home would have thought herself exceedingly fortunate if she could have managed to get one decent suit of clothes in the year, thinks nothing of spending the whole of her income of L4O or LSO per annum in gorgeous array. A man who, at Home, would have looked at a sixpence many times before spending it, as the saying is, will not hesitate to make away with a pound or two, in one night, in such a manner that he will get nothing in return for it except a severe headache next morning ; or, still worse, such, a mau will get into the pernicious custom of habitually spending in ardent spirits as much as the whole of his wages amounted to at Horae. We do not say that it is right or necessary that persons who come here should live as if they were still at Home and still under the gripe of that stern poverty which they have endeavored to escape from by emigrating ; but we do say that if they would profit only a little by the hard lessons which they have so thoroughly learned at Home ; if they would exercise voluntarily only a little of the prudence and foresight which they exercised at Home through, necessity j if, in short, they would eat, drink, and wear out clothes only in moderation, and put the remainder of what they earned by, in the great majority of cases a few years would place them in easy circumstances. It has often occurred to us that useful hints might be given to immigrants on this subject as soon as they arrive at the barracks. There can be no doubt that the arrival of an immigrant at his destination is one of the most important crises in his life. It is a period when he is about to make a new start in a new country, which, while it affords peculiar advantages, has also its peculiar dangers. It may also be supposed that, at a critical time like this, men and women are peculiarly impressionable, and that a few earnest, well-chosen words from an experienced man of the world might have an effect in keeping in the right path those who are already in it and deterring others from continuing in the wrong, which the finest of sermons delivered a few days afterwards to the same people might be altogether unable to bring about. It is really worth considering whether some of our leading men might not be found who would be willing to do this missionary work—for missionary work of the truest kind it would be—to visit the barracks immediately on the arrival of a ship-load of immigrants, to give them a short address, explaining to them the nature of the good things they are about to share, and warning them of the dangers they are likely to encounter, and, finally, to give them a welcome to our shores, At any rate it would thus be shown that some interest

is taken m their welfare, that we are not altogether indifferent as to what becomes of them when once we have succeeded in getting them into the Colony.