Graham's Magazine, Vol. XLI, No. 1, July 1852Various
General
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XLI, No. 1, July 1852
Various
Literature -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals
This objection would be just if no protecting, aiding hand were
stretched forth to guiltless and destitute youth. But in England this
objection is overruled by many benevolent institutions. Among these is
the Emigrant’s Home for young persons who can produce certificates of
blameless life, and who wish to emigrate, but have not the means of so
doing. I visited the Home, where young women of the working class and of
good character are received for a time, examined, and afterward enabled
to leave the country and to obtain situations in the English colonies.
Between seven and eight hundred young women had, within rather more than
a year, been sent abroad from this Home, their passage paid, and
services obtained for them in the colonies, mostly in New Zealand and
Australia. In the Ragged Schools also is Australia Felix a land which
stands before the souls of the children as a future home with a brighter
sky and better prospects for them than their native land, and the
sending them thither is a reward for their progress in learning. From
thirteen to fifteen years of age they are sent thither—that is to say,
to the southern part of the continent, where the climate is most
healthy, and where none of the convict population are to be met with;
these, as is well known, being confined to the northern coast. The
children obtain situations in the families of the wealthy colonists,
still remaining in connection with the mother-school which sent them
out; and their letters to the teachers and their friends, about the
country and the people of that new world to which they have removed,
diffuse the utmost pleasure and excite the deepest interest in the old
home. I read some of these letters, printed in small, neat, stitched
pamphlets, which are sold and circulated for a few pence, together with
many other small writings of the same price and form. I read with great
interest these child-like, naïve descriptions, fresh with morning dew,
from the new world. And this led me to a more intimate acquaintance with
the popular folk-literature of England. This subject, however, is too
great to be treated of here, and demands a separate chapter. Merely a
few words in short.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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