MIDDLE-CLASS FEMALE EMIGRATION.

Southland Times, Volume 2, Issue 95, 30 September 1863, Page 5 (Supplement)

MIDDLE-CLASS FEMALE EMIGRATION.

(From the Canterbury Press.) .Our contemporary,,the Lyttdton Times, at the instigation of an up-country,corres-pondent, has reprinted an article from the Saturday Review on the subject of ,Miss Rye' and her efforts to establish a middleclass female emigration. The Saluraay Review is a journal" which has introduced a new phase into the style and tone of newspaper criticism. To - pyaise nothing and abuse everything- has been a common resource with the lowest class of the: public journals ; but the" vulgarity of the object had heretofore been .represented hi, .the, coarseness of the style, fhe Saturday Review adopted the idea, but elevated the' style. Without becoming less of the brigand, it exchanged the club for. the lapier. Its principle from the first. lias been to subordinate the thing said to the manner of saying it, and to disseminate any fallacies however gross, and any doctrines however inconsistent, provided only they were clothed in a style, classical, racy, vigorous, and wilty. What the canaille j of the press has been to the lower orders, J the Saturday Review has been to the! educated. " Why should the devil," said i Wesley, " have all the good tunes ?" And I "why should the blackguards." said the authors of the Saturday, '• have the mono- ; poly of unscrupulous vituperation^"' Dependon it tht* coai'sest food can he dishedi up by a real artiste in a form to delight the most dainty palates. If the navvy gets; drunk on beer and gin the gentlemen can. share the pleasure of intoxication effected through the medium of claret or maraschino. But apart from the pleasure to an educated mind of reading really good writing, there is no human taste that can be appealed to more successfully than his hunting- instinct. Men will huut anything that has the breath of life in it if once put on the scent. No matter how feeble, innocent, or unprotected, once start the creature as game, and every sense, moral and intellectual, is absorbed in the overwhelming passion of the chase. '' A harmless necessary cat" in a village schoolground — a dog in a town street vviih a kettle tied to its tail to overcome its propensity to fondle, and frighten it Snto run- ; ning — a hare, a mouse, or a minnow — anything will do ; so Ion gf as it can be considered for the moment to be game, it is a legitimate object of the chase, and is deprived for the time. of all the protection which the influences of reason and humanity would naturally afford by restraining the cruelty of its persecutors. Miss Rye is a single Jady engaged in an unusual work ; whether it be great or use- ! Ful, or the contrary, may be a matter ofi opinion; but at all events, she has strayed j out of the cover in which single young ladies ordinarily wile away then 1 spinsterhood on to the great common of public and busy life. She is game — the pack is at her heels in a moment, the leading dog yelping with fierce delight. She has possibly some of the weakness of her sex, and therefore is a fit and safe object to be trampled in the dirt at once. What are a woman's feelings that they should stand in the way of the polished coarseness and refined cruelty of an editor's wit I Why should any chivalrous sense of honor Suggest a delicacy of style or guardedness of language when writing or a woman's struggles to help her suffering fellow-women ? The gist of the Saturday Review's article (and we see the same idea repeated in an article in the Melbourne Argus), is that Miss Rye has undertaken to import to the colonies a large number of young ladies, under the pretence that they are wanted as governesses, but really as wives for the settlers. So far as we have seen of Miss Rye's writings, or can speak of her work, of the value of which we have been cognisant for several years, we should have nn hesitation in pronouncing die accusation a cruel aud ungentiemanlikc slander. Miss Rye has herself denied it, and neither the Saturday L'cvieio, nor the Melbourne Argus nor even a correspondent of the Li/Udtou Times, who signs himself "Ante Levite" (but in a truer appreciation the parable might have written "Anti-Samaritan"), neither of these writers have given any authority for the charge on which ihey have expended their ire, namely, that Miss Rye has held out the prospect of marriage as an inducement to young ladies to colonise. But had sh« done so — let us lay aside all mealy mouthedness, and say boldly, is not the want of women to become wives and mothers a great, one of the greatest wants in every colonial community ! Has it not been so since the time when the early settlers in Virginia sent back a formal order Jo England for wive?, and when two shiploads of women, many of them of good birth and high education, were sent out to meet the demand 2 And those old colonists made no secret of the mailer, for each man as lie took a wife to his bosom honestly paid down on the nail a bale of tobacco to meet the charges on Ihe consignment. Why, in this colony have we not known not one instance but several, of men going into Lyttelton with (he avowed object of getting a wife out of the first ship, and who have accomplished their object satisfactorily? Is there anything more unwomanly in a girl coming out to (he colonies to get settled in life, than in being shipped out to a relative in India with the same object? And who pretends to be ignorant that hundreds of modest and* excellent maidens have sought ! under an eastern sun that appreciation of! their worth and charms which was denied j them under the colder skies of the West ? Are not well educated young women wanted for wives in the colonies? if not, j how is it that so many young men marry below their station in life? Is not that very common in the colonies ? Nay, may we not retort the charge ? Who does not ; remember that disgusting letter in the j Times some two years ago, signed '' Six ; Motheis iv Belgravia/' and all the revolting correspondence to which it gave rise ; setting forth the ball rooms, the theatres, aye, and the churches of the- metropolis, as the marts where matrimonial bargains were made, and where ambitious mothers displayed the charms of their daughters for sale to the highest bidder ? But in fact the whole charge is a pure invention. That the governesses are sent out to get married is no more true than that any other class of woman are sent out for the same purpose. The real state of the case is this, All but those who are very ignorant of social questions know, that real, pressing poverty is not confined to the lower orders. It is not the lowest class but the lowest qf each class who are poor. In no cl.->ss is there more poverty, or poverty which weighs with a crueller hand, than on the single women, of the middle class. Daughters of clergymen, ; of officers, of attornies, whose fathers have enjoyed lite incomes aud have died, leaving their children well educated but penniless, — or of shopkeepers and merchants who have been unfortunate in business and are reduced to poverty -—of these- there is i\ large class who dig and are asbamed

to beg. Few know the difficulty of obtaining any "situation or any means whatever whereby these women can earn a livelihood.^ They Cannot become servantsof all work. Here is nothing left them but to "become governesses. They go. under that generic name. Miss. Rye 'is one of those few women who have come forward to , do her little in her generation to lend a helping hand to this miserable 'class.. She .and others have done much* already. The} r have gojt work and situations for many hundreds of women. They j have, , opened up" new branches of employment not known before. Woman are now employed as copying clerks, as telegraphists, as compositors. In the pursuit of this noble iask of opening: up means of self support for these young woman, Miss Rye tin ns to the colonies. . Of course she did. What have we all- come to the colony for * Did we^in whatever class we are. come ( because we were rii-h ! No ! but "because we were poor. „ And is, the class of woman of whom we have been speaking to be excluded from colonising ? Miss Rye has taken the, course of a sound practical', person, of business. SKe has come to the colonies to enquire for herself what prospetjttiiereisdf being able to send a few. well-educated woman to the' colony each year : not to one colony, but to t»ll r She does net ask us to pay for them ; she" lias Tutherto asked us simply to take charge of ;ithem, and~give tbetn a home til! they can get employment; and we are ashamed to confess that even ihis request has no£beerj. met in a generous spirit. For J our own parts, we are quite satisfied that there i s ample ropmfor a few we educated young ladies to' be introduced into each colony every year. We quite agree.t hat the thing may be easily overdone, and that lbe emigration should be. conducted, with I extreme caution, If such ladies are to come amongst us they should in no case come without full and numerous letters ot introduction fiom personal friends in England", guaranteeing their respectabilit3' and qualifications as instructors. With proper precautions/and in small numbers to each colony, a stream of emigration might be maintained which-in the course of a few years would prove a very great relief to the mother counuy, and supply a most valuable element of society to the colonies. In this work we hope Miss Rye will not faint or be weary. Slie needs but to gather up stores of information and experience on her tour, and to rely on those few who, in this world's struggle, have a deep and true sympathy for all great and good attempts to succor tfie distressed— those who do not consider themselves discharged of all duly to help in the work because they differ as to the details of its execution— and we venture to say she will have established a work which will entitle her to regard wiih the utmost equanimity the attacks of those who have no sympathy with her objects.