HORRORS OF AN ATLANTIC EMIGRANT SHIP.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 151, 27 June 1881, Page 4

HORRORS OF AN ATLANTIC EMIGRANT SHIP.

Miss Charlotte G. O'Brien, daoghter fif Smith O'Brien, writes in tbe "Pall Mall GBzette " a descripjion of tbe horrors of an emigrant ship, anii the^ System generally, bo vividly, thai the Subject has been brought before the Commons. In thU letter Bhe said :--We had come on board to see the emigrants, and we were determined to see their quarters first. When we

saw (he quarters of the single men, descriptions of slave chips flashed across me. JBelow tbis place our guide showed us a deep bole, saying, " I I could not take you down there, ti'a much worse than you see." But nay business was with the women's quarten, and we went there. Between two deck?, better lighted than the men's quarters, was a large epsce, open from one side of the ship to lbs oiber. From either side of a long oentral walk (o the outer walla of the ship, were slung two enormous hammocks, one suspended about three feet from the floor. What was going oo in the other two hammocks above them I could not see, but. I presume they were the came as those below. I suppose that eaoh of these hammocks cany about a hundred pcreods. They were made of sailcloth, and being suspended till around from hbokp, were perfectly flit. Narrow strips of sail cloth divide this great bed into berths. These strips cf cloth, when the mnttrasses were out, formed divisions about eight inches high When the mattresses are in it mutt be almost on a level. Now in these beds lie hundreds of men and women. Any man w! o comes with a woman, who is or rails herself his wife, sleepy, a matter of ti'ht, in the midst of hundreds of young vyomen who are compelled to live in his presence day anj eight. If they remove their clothing they must do so under his eyis. If they lie down to rest it roust be beside him. It is a shame even to speak of these things, but to destroy such an evil it is neceEsiry to look at these abodes of misery. Id daylight, and when open for ioppfction, they are empty, swept and garnished — but thiok cf the scene in the derknesa of the night, the ship pitching in mid-ocean, when a glimmering lamp or two makes visible to you tbis miss of helpless humanity. Look at that young mother with two or three helpless babies in the agonies of seasickness, unable to move but over the prostrate bodies of her fellow- sufferers. Look at this innocent girl-child, living among dissolute men and abandoned women, and half stupefied with'suffocation and s^a-eicknesß, atnii the cur sen and groans of hundreds. If she arises and flees, to save her soul, whither shall she go ? Again she must tread on writhing bodies of nden and women, this is no hrutal or impure dream It is tbe truth. It is a living horror, menacing the lives, honor, and souls of hundreds of thousands of our fellow* country-women;, the ship on which I saw these things being supposed to carry in this manner 1000 steerage passengers. S^e carried last year on doe voyage, 1775 emigrant's,"