Pictures of Canadian Life: A Record of Actual ExperiencesRitchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing)
History
Pictures of Canadian Life: A Record of Actual Experiences
Ritchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing)
Canada -- Description and travel; Canada -- Emigration and immigration
As a rule, the steerage passengers are a difficult body to deal with;
they seem so helpless, and require so much looking after. Mr. Jones has
enough to do to look after his. If they lose anything, however paltry,
he is appealed to. If they require anything not provided in the bill of
fare, he is sent for. It is very clear to me that his party have great
advantages. He has taken down all their occupations, and when we arrive
at Quebec they will all, if possible, be provided with employment, and
will be at once forwarded to their destination, without loss of time or
expenditure of cash. Many of them are also assisted by his Society with
small sums of money, and in every way they are helped as few other
emigrants are.
We have on board a party of fifty-one lads, sent out by Dr. Bowman
Stephenson, who has a depôt somewhere near Hamilton, and a helper is on
board to take care of them. Some of them are of very juvenile years,
and, it is to be believed, in Canada will find a far more favourable lot
than they ever could in the streets and slums of the East End.
‘What are you going to do?’ said I to one of them the other morning.
‘Please, sir, I am going to be adopted,’ was the reply; and adopted he
will be by some worthy couple who, having no children of their own, are
ready to give the little outcast a home such as he never could have found
in the old country.
We have also an agent on board, who, for a certain sum, agrees to take
young fellows out and to find them suitable situations. That is a course
I should not recommend. A young fellow had far better keep that extra
cash in his pocket, get out as far into the North-west as he can, there
hire himself to some settler, who at this time of year is sure to be in
need of his services, and then in a year or two he will be able to get a
grant of land on his own account, on which, after three years of real
hard work, he will be able to live in peace and comfort, and to achieve
an independence of which he has no chance on our side of the Atlantic.
It quite grieves me to think of the poor farmers I have known at home,
wasting their time and capital and strength in a hopeless effort to make
both ends meet, who might be doing well out here, with the certainty that
their families will be left in a comfortable position as far as this
world’s goods are concerned. One thing, however, I must strongly impress
upon the emigrant, and that is, the necessity of coming out in the
spring.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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