OFF WITH THE EMIGRANTS—THE VOYAGE OUT—THE ‘SARNIA’ THE COD-FISHERY.
One Wednesday at the end of April, last year, St. Pancras Railway Station
was the scene of a display not often matched even in these demonstrative
days. Mr. J. J. Jones, of the Samaritan Mission, had arranged to take
out a party of five hundred emigrants to Canada—the first party of the
season. The event seemed to create no little excitement in philanthropic
circles. The Lord Mayor had promised to be there, but he was detained in
the City, possibly in defence of the ancient Corporation of which he has
become the champion; but he sent a cordial letter, as did many other
distinguished people, to express sympathy and goodwill.
In the absence of the Lord Mayor, the Earl of Shaftesbury, after the
emigrants had been got together in a waiting-room, presided at a farewell
meeting, which ought to have sent the emigrants in the best of spirits to
the new homes they expect to find on the other side of the Atlantic.
They would, said his lordship, still be under the reign of our Queen.
They would confer a great blessing on the country whither they were
going, and they would show what they could do as good citizens in
subduing and replenishing the earth, and in spreading over the world the
Anglo-Saxon race. He hoped that the young men present would come back to
England for wives, and ended with his best wishes for all in the way of a
safe voyage and temporal and spiritual good.
The Earl of Carnarvon, who next spoke, had this advantage over the noble
chairman, in that he had made a trip to Canada himself. The emigrants,
he said, would encounter difficulties. They were not going to a
paradise, but they would find that they had a better chance of getting a
living in the New World; especially if they avoided bad company and the
crowded towns, and got into the country, and underwent a certain
preparatory training. As to Canada, it was a country in which a man
would succeed who had health and strength and industry, and a good head
and a good heart, and the fear of God to teach him that honesty was the
best policy.
Sir Henry Tyler, M.P., the chairman of the Grand Trunk Railway, followed
in a similar strain. The people were not crowded up in Canada as they
were here. It was a grand country for honest, hard-working men and
well-behaved women; but he recommended them at first to seek good honest
people to work with, rather than high wages. Turning to the young women,
he assured them they would find good husbands in Canada—a remark which
seemed to give them much satisfaction; and he hoped that they would have
large families when they married, as large families were a blessing out
there.
Then came forward Mr. Clare Sewell Read, M.P., who, as a countryman, said
he saw some country bumpkins in the party, and he could assure them, as
he had been in Canada, its soil was unrivalled for fertility.
Lord Napier of Magdala followed, and then came the Hon. Donald A. Smith,
one of the directors of the Canadian Pacific Railway, to tell how people
prospered in Canada who behaved well and worked hard. The Rev. Oswald
Dykes and the Rev. Burman Cassin also addressed the audience; and there
were others, such as the Earl of Aberdeen, the Rev. W. Tyler, and the
Rev. Styleman Herring, who were ready to say a few words had time
permitted; but the train had to be packed up with passengers and luggage,
and there was no time to spare.
In a few minutes they were off, amidst tears and cheers, while Mr. Jones
and I, with Mr. Alexander Begg, of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and the
remainder of the emigrants, followed. A little after five we arrived at
Liverpool, and then Mr. Jones had to work like a horse.
Meanwhile, I, with a couple of artistic friends, who are to sketch us,
all took our ease in our inn, from which comfortable quarters I felt
sadly indisposed to stir; but I had to see the emigrants off, and my
heart sank into my shoes as, looking at the hundreds swarming the
platform, and the pyramids of luggage, and then at the _Sarnia_ moored in
mid-stream, the thought suggested itself, How on earth can they all be
stowed away?—a query which, however, was soon settled, as, at a later
hour, I found myself on board the _Sarnia_, leaving smoky Liverpool
behind, and with the ship’s head turned to the sunset ‘and the baths of
all the Western stars.’
The _Sarnia_, it may be as well to inform my readers, is one of the
screw-steamers running between Quebec and Liverpool, by the Dominion
Line, which line commenced its gay career in 1870. I ought to be very
happy on board, since I learn, from the attentive perusal of documents
lying in the cabin, that, owing to the lines in the model, the rolling of
the ship is to a great extent, not destroyed, but reduced, making a
considerable decrease in sea-sickness, and that in the book of rules and
regulations compiled for the guidance of the Dominion Line officers, they
must run no risk which might by any possibility result in accident to the
ship, and that they are further requested to bear in mind that the safety
of the lives and property entrusted to their care is the ruling principle
that should govern them in the management of their ships. I almost fancy
I must have thrown away my money in insuring my life against loss and my
person against accidents. What have I to fear, if the rules and
regulations of the company be observed? I am very glad, as it is, I did
not insure for a larger sum, though the agent, who, of course, had his
eye on the extra commission, was kind enough to suggest it were well to
insure for the larger sum, _in case the ship went down_!—a thing not to
be dreamed of.
I have consulted that oracle of our fathers—Francis Moore. In his ‘Vox
Stellarum’ he tells me, to my comfort and satisfaction, that after the
25th of April the winds will be light. Francis Moore, you may tell me,
is not weatherwise. Are the scientific meteorologists, with their
forecasts, wiser? It is hard to say.
It is a comfort to think that the emigrants are well off for literature.
The _Graphic_ company—whose last dividend, I learn, was a good deal over
a hundred per cent.—have sent a tremendous packet of _Graphics_. The
Bible Society sent Testaments. The Religious Tract Society have placed
at Mr. Jones’s disposal tracts and books. The Rev. Newman Hall has sent
250 books, while a goodly packet of the ‘Family Circle Edition’ of the
_Christian World_ will, I dare say, be in much request—quite as much as
the five hundred sheets of hymns which the Earl of Aberdeen brought with
him on Wednesday to St. Pancras as his contribution to the common stock.
Yes, indeed, as my Welsh friends would say, the lines for us are cast in
pleasant places, and we have a goodly heritage. It is to be hoped it may
be so.
I never saw a more tidy lot of emigrants—some of them evidently the right
class to get on. I had an amusing chat with one, who told me what
inquiries he had made before he would entrust Mr. J. J. Jones with ‘Cæsar
and his fortunes.’ If the emigrants are all like him, the Yankees, if
there be such in Canada, will find it rather difficult to take them in.
We swarm with children and babies. I fear some of us will wish, before
we reach the St. Lawrence, that good King Herod was on board. Of course,
these are not my sentiments. I suppose most of us were babies once—there
is every reason to believe that I was; nevertheless, the most gushing
mother will admit that there are times when even the sweetest of babes
ceases to charm. My companions in the smoking-room the first night were,
however, by no means babes. I had not been there half-an-hour before I
was offered 34,000 acres of land—abounding with fish and game, and all
that the carnal heart could desire—a decided bargain. I did not close
with the offer. Perhaps I ought to have done so. But such earthly
grandeur is beyond my dreams.
Nothing can be drearier or more monotonous than a trip to Canada in the
early season of the year. After you leave Ireland, you see no
ships—nothing but the sea, grey and dull as the heaven above. Now and
then a whale comes up to blow, and that is all; and when the wind blows
hard, you get nothing but big, lumpy waves, which set the ship rolling,
and add only to the discomforts. And then you are on the Newfoundland
banks, where you may spend dull days and duller nights—now going at
half-speed, now stopping altogether, while the fog-horn blows dismally
every few minutes, and whence you can see scarcely the length of the ship
ahead.
Like Oscar Wilde, I own that I am very much disappointed with the
Atlantic. The icebergs are monotonous—when you have seen one, that is
enough. In the saloon, we are a sad, dull party; even in the
smoking-room, one can scarcely get up a decent laugh. I pity the poor
emigrants in the steerage, whom a clever young Irish journalist on board,
with the instinct of his race, has failed to excite into a proper state
of indignation on account of the discomforts of the voyage, and the
hardness of the potatoes—always a matter of complaint in all the ships
that I have ever been on board of.
The raw, cold, damp fog has taken all the starch out of the steerage
passengers, always the first to grumble on sea, as they are on shore; yet
on one occasion they did go so far as to send a deputation to the
captain, and what, think you, was their grievance?—that they had no sauce
to their fish!—a grievance of little account, when one thinks of the
sauce we had served up in the saloon.
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.
It is madness to cross the Atlantic in the autumn; when he lands at
Quebec, he will find nothing to do, and must live on his capital, or
starve till next spring; and if I might recommend a ship, it certainly
would be the _Sarnia_, on which I now write. She is slow but sure. Her
commander, Captain Gibson, is all that a captain should be—not a
brilliant conversationalist, not one of those men who set the table in a
roar; but cautious, skilful, fully alive to the responsibilities of his
position and the dangers of his calling. As to the dangers, it is
impossible to exaggerate them. There are more than a thousand of us on
board, and were anything to happen, not more than three hundred of us
could, I should think, be crowded into the boats, provided that the sea
were quite calm, and that we had plenty of time to leave the ship; and in
a panic and in bad weather, it is clear that even such boats as the
_Sarnia_ is supplied with would be of little avail. Safety seems to me a
mere matter of chance. You hit on an iceberg, and down goes the ship
with all on board, leaving no record behind.
As a matter of fact, I believe these big steamers often, on a dark night,
run down the vessels engaged in fishing off the Newfoundland banks. When
we passed, the season had scarcely commenced. It is in May, towards the
end of the month, that the fishing commences. The chief fishermen are
the French, who mostly hail from St. Malo, and who have in the Gulf of
Newfoundland two small islands, which they use for fish-curing. You get
an idea of the extent of these fisheries, when I tell you that the total
value of them amounts to three millions a year, and that the supply seems
inexhaustible. Romanists and High Churchmen who indulge in salt cod in
Lent have little cause to fear that that aid to true religion will
cease—at any rate, in our time. The fishing season lasts until November,
when the shoals pass on to their winter quarters in deeper waters.
The delicate and the consumptive have many reasons for thankfulness in
connection with this fishery. What they would do without the cod-liver
oil, which has saved and lengthened many a valuable life, it were hard to
say. It is to England that almost all the cod-liver oil comes. The cod
roe, pickled and barrelled, is exported almost entirely to France, where
it is in great demand, as ground-bait for the sardine fishery. How great
that demand is, the reader will at once perceive when I tell him that no
fewer than 13,000 boats on the coast of Brittany are engaged in the
sardine fishery alone.
I ought to say that these Quebec steamers are, as regards saloon
accommodation, and the class of people you meet with on board, not quite
on a par with those which ply between Liverpool and New York. Perhaps
the latter are fitted up almost too splendidly. ‘When the stormy winds
do blow’—when everyone is ill—when you are in that happy state of mind
when man delights you not, or woman either—the gilded saloons, the velvet
cushions, the plate glass and ornamented panels, seem quite out of place;
to say nothing of the luxurious dinners, which not everyone is able to
enjoy. Such things are better fitted for summer seas and summer skies.