Missing Friends: Being the Adventures of a Danish Emigrant in Queensland (1871-1880)Weitemeyer, Thorvald Peter Ludwig
History
Missing Friends: Being the Adventures of a Danish Emigrant in Queensland (1871-1880)
Weitemeyer, Thorvald Peter Ludwig
Queensland -- Description and travel
--and--we--will--get--justice." Thorkill still kept on talking, but the
outburst of relief from all sides completely drowned his voice. There
was an honourable way to get out of it. "We will complain when we come
ashore," "Disperse," "Let it be enough," and similar expressions, were
heard on all sides, and the doctor, I suppose nothing loth, had quite a
pleased appearance as he stepped up on the quarter-deck again as soon as
the road was clear, and disappeared out of sight simultaneously with the
dispersion of the men.
That day the doctor did not show up again, but on the next, I suppose
just to show that he did not consider himself beaten, all the single men
were ordered below at sundown as a punishment for insubordination, and
with that the matter ended. But now the men were pressing Thorkill to
write out a complaint which should embody all we had suffered, and all
our supposed wrongs. Thorkill, however, would do no such thing. It was
not in his line, he said. Many a talk he and I had about it, but he
could not see his way. "All these poor people," said he, "are treated
with contempt because they are poor, and I cannot help them for I am
just as poor. We do not know to whom to complain; we cannot write
English, and what we do will rebound on our own heads. Still," said he,
"it--is--a--shame--that--they--should--be--allowed--to--treat--people
--like--this." Then I wrote out a complaint in Danish addressed to the
Danish Consul, Australia. The exact contents of it I have long since
forgotten, but it was to the effect that we had been starved,
ill-treated, had had no sick accommodation, insufficient bed-clothes,
&c., and from that day I looked upon myself as an important personage on
board ship. All the single and married men, with about a dozen
exceptions, signed the statement. All the single girls wanted also to
sign it, but I feared the woman in charge might confiscate the document
(the matron in charge of the girls on our ship was only an ordinary
emigrant selected by the doctor, and in my opinion scarcely the best
that might have been selected. In English emigrant ships an educated
lady is engaged as matron.) Thus I could not bring myself to go among
them for the purpose of getting signatures, and so the females were not
represented in the complaint. (It might, however, be interesting to
English readers, as showing the standard of education on the continent
of Europe, that of all the people on board only one, an elderly man, had
to sign his name with a cross.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account