EMIGRANT SHIPS. (From Sidney's Emigrant's Journal.)

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 378, 28 November 1849, Page 4

EMIGRANT SHIPS. (From Sidney's Emigrant's Journal.)

On this day last week there lay at Gravesend, with anchors tripped, all ready to depar 1 , three ships loaded with capital and labour for the Antipodes—for Adelaide, Port Phillip and Sydney in Australia, and Auckland in New Zealand— living cargoes ; in all, not far from 800 souls. "What busy, bustling, painful, yet hopeful scenes were to be found on board these ships ; all the materials of a drama except death, and even that not far distant, for one woman seemed almost at the last gaip. AH classes were there from pauperism, saved from the workhouse by charity, to afflusnee seeking investments in nn Australian El Dorado; all ages, too, from the in f ant in arm 3 to the grandmother following the fortunes of her children to a new if not a better world ; all tempers and conditions of mind— despair, dogged resignation, indifference both smiling and sullen, the playful thoughtlessness of children, and hopeful joy of adventurous youth. There were young married couples, bachelor! in search of fortune, and maideni in search of husbands— almost the only speculation open to all the sex, from the ducheit to the dairy -maid.— There were .rehtions, haitening to join successful colonists, and scape-graces shovellsd away, because Australia is the most distant accessible part of the globe. But the most numerous class seemed fathers with large families* The three ships were on different systetni. One, the ' Aden, 1 contained passengers at all prices, from £15 a head up to the luxuries of poop cabini. The ' Duke of Bronte' was on the uniform principle, each paying £21 ; the passengers were berthed and messed alike— there wai no cabin and no steerage fare. The 'Oriental Queen,' which had been taken up by Government to convey pensioners who had volunteered to serve and settle in New Zealand, was a specimen of uniform free steerage passage!. In all three the most prominent and noticeable objec's were the crowdi of laughing children, the fattest and fineit being the young stock of the pensioners To vi this fact teemed to offer a lesson which our statesmen might study with advantage. It is a leading axiom with Mr. Wakefield — as may be seen by referring to his "Art of Colonization' I—that1 — that poor people with children should not be encouraged to emigrate, because children are noisy and troublesome, and sometimes sickly. An examination of emigrant ships will shew that it is the little children who lead the way to colonies. Under the artificial system, then, those who desire to go aie to stay at home, and those who do not, are to be stimulated into colonising activity. Good housewives gather the ripe fruit in the orchard, fallen but not tainted ; if they want more, they give the tree a gentle shake, when down come plenty ready for denert, pie or pud* ding. If emigration is to form a material part of our governing system, we must dispense with picked colonists and take ripe ones. Children are troublesome, and especially ou board ship ; they want nurses, and fag the soul out of the unhappy doctor, who undertakes for the wages of a second-rate sawyer, to keep the passengers and crew in advice and physic. But it seems to us that that man is more likely than any other to make a good colonist who has four or five living, crying reasons for staying in one place and getting along. To quit, however, generalities for details. The first impression produced on getting on board an emigrant ship at Gravesend, is that of hopeless confusion. The decks are lumbered with everything that can be conceived — boats, cables, span, hencoops, deal planks, boxes, chesti, bedding, and children getting every« where they should not, without end. Sailors, busy in their special pursuits, are intermingled with carpenters hammering away at partitions — (it fc very odd, but on emigrant ships the carpenters seem never to have finished until they are under weigh)-— and the men passengers running about with a sort of helpless activity, breaking their shins and losing their temper, while the women mope about on the poopi, looking dirty, dowdy, and uncomfortable, like hens on a wet a'tcrnoon. Descending to the lower deck, we come upon the hive full of cells in which the swarming bees, no drones, are to dwell for a four-months' voyage —to shoiegoing eyes, a long, low, narrow, and rather dark gallery, the centre occupied by a table, snd at either side the berths ; that is, a series of shelves, in width after the rate of three feet to each passenger, closed in on the twenty -one-pound scale, and open on the steerage system. To describe them would be useless, if not impossible : but there was a capital picture of the interior of an emigrant ship in the Illustrated News a short time since. To a sailor's eye and with a sailor's arrangements, the space is ample ; compared with the herring-like packing on board the Ameiican timber ships, it it quite a drawing room ; while experience tells us that thousands have voyaged in health and comfort, to and from Australia, under these arrangements ; nevertheless, it tnuit be owned that, to a country party, who has never seen the tea before, there is something veiy fearful in being so "cribbed, cabined and confined." Under the system now so universally adopted, the married couples occupy the centre, the single women a partition at the stem, and the single men at the bows. A hospital is provided for both sexes. Although, the arrangements, which me subjected to the inipection of a government naval officer, aie excellent as U proved by the very few deaths on the Auitralian voyage. The characters of the emigrants were displayed thus early. Some were actively engaged in arranging their berths, knocking nails and hooks, and placing packages so as to be had at a moment's warning. The London mechanics and shopkeepers seem the best at this workactive, conceited, and full of talk. Some seem lost in confusion, and not knowing where to begin. We saw one poor fellow, with a wife and a large brood of children, take packet after packet, evidently overwhelmed by the idea of packing the weedingt of his farm-house in the space of a moderate corn chest. A few were wasting time in smoking and drinking. Those with children had no idle moments— what with I feeding them, and hunting them up, and snatching them out of mischief. One pale worn man, very poorly clad, with a harassed-looking wife and five thin small children, from thirteen downwards, was g.iving a lesson in writing on slates to his two eldest. He was from Leicestershire, a specimen of a peasantry that is not bold ; from hii completion and garb he had either been in the vvorkhouae or very near it ; his I two eldest sorts only had the tanned faces of a field life. Although it was impossible to imagine a group oi' more wretched appearance; but they were happy, perhaps one of the happiest parties in the ship. Earl Howe, a peer, better known for his benevolence than his wealth, had subscribed £50, the parish had given £10, and others enough for passage, £5, and outfit ; in all £db. This party had every thing to hope for and nothing to regret. England is to them a place of harJ work, scanty food, scanty fuel, and thin raiment. They seemed too much broken to enjoy life— a poor cringing helpless creative. But we should like to trace the career of the children, who in five years, will scorn j the wages and the food which in England their parent I received with grateful thanks.' There was anothtr ' interesting personage, a young matron, alio with five children, g'»mg to join her husband in Australia, the victim of our cancerous system of Chancery, reduced from independence to literal beggary j saved from ;

actual starvation by the benevolent and beneficcent exertions of one who, without rank or wealth, in deeds of charity outvies us all, gentle and simple. The lately suffering lady, for whom, with her husband a comfortable career had been prepared in Australia, seems stupified by her new poiition. To her, too, there could be few regrets in leaving a country associated with scenes of such distress and degradation as are the inevitable lot of destitution in crowded cities. If we are to be pauperised, let us strive beneath a clear sky, in sights of woods and fields, far from the stinks and oaths of city pauper hunts. A young lady, an orphan of 17, left perfectly destitute and sent out by the instrumentality of a few friends, was overwhelmed with grief at the idea of leaving her native country. Her imagination could not rcaliie the pangs of poverty, and the sbip with its mrrow berth, was to her the fint visible sign of having fallen from the rank of a lady to a level with her companions— frugal cooks, and housemaids, hastening out in hopes of marrying gentlemen squatters— it one blow a husband, a house, and a riding- horse, are three great objects of their vaulting ambition.