THE STEERAGE PASSAGE
Apart from its other merits the steerage has this to its
credit--every one is very friendly and affable. No one required an
introduction before entering into conversation, and the suspicion
that we might be making the acquaintance of some doubtful and
inferior person who would perhaps presume upon it later did not worry
any of us. I sat at a delightful table. Some one who knew the ins
and outs of a steerage passage had advised me to go in to meals with
the first 'rush,' instead of waiting for the second or third. His
theory was that the first relay got the pick of the food. So my two
friends and I had taken care to answer the very first call to the
saloon, which happened to be for high tea, and, seating ourselves at
random, found that we were thereby self-condemned to take every meal
in the same order--including breakfast at the unaccustomed and
somewhat dispiriting hour of 7 A.M. {7} I do not know that it
greatly mattered. In the cabin next ours there were several small
children, who appeared to wake and weep about 4 A.M., and either to
throw themselves or be thrown out of their berths on to the floor a
little later. Their lamentations then became so considerable, that
we were not sorry to rise and go elsewhere.
Besides the three of us, there were at our table the following:--
(1) A Norwegian peasant. Going on to the land. Quiet and rapid in
his eating.
(2) Another Norwegian peasant, also going on to the land. He must
have arrived on board very hungry, and he remained so throughout the
voyage. He used to help himself to butter with his egg spoon, after
he had finished most of his egg with it. Moreover, he would rise and
stretch a red and dusky arm all down the table, if he sighted
something appetising afar off. As we had a most excellent table
steward, whose waiting could not have been beaten in the first-class,
we all rather resented this behaviour, and I--as his next door
neighbour--was deputed to hold him courteously in his seat until the
desired eatables could be passed him.
(3) A Durham miner going to a mine in {8} northern Ontario. A cheery
red-faced person. He had bought a revolver before starting for
Canada, because friends had told him that they were rough sort of
places up there. I afterwards stayed a night in a mining town, and
the only row that I heard was caused by a young Salvation Army girl,
who beat a drum violently for hours outside the bar. We advised the
miner to practise with his revolver in some isolated spot, these
weapons being tricky.
(4) A small shy cockney boy who was going out to his dad at Winnipeg.
I don't know what his dad was, but I should think a clerk of sorts.
(5) A brass metal worker from the North. Going to a job in
Peterborough. A quiet pleasant young man.
(6) A chauffeur who had also been in the Royal Engineers. Had been
in the South African War, and told stories about it much more
interesting than those you see in books.
(7) A horse-breaker, with whom I spent many hours learning about bits
and bridles and shoes. He was the only married man among these
seven. He hoped to bring his wife and family out within the year,
and was not going to be happy until he did, even though {9} the kids
would have to be vaccinated, and he had most conscientious objections
to this process.
All these men--even the Norwegian with his egg-spoon habits--would
be, I could not help thinking, a distinct gain to any country. I
fancy too that they represented the steerage generally. Of course
there were other types. I remember some characteristic Londoners of
the less worthy sort--gummy-faced youths in dirty clothes that had
been smart. There was one in particular, whom the horse-breaker
would refer to as 'that lad that goes about in what was once a soot
o' clothes,' who had a perfect genius for card tricks and making
music on a comb. His career in Canada, judging by criticisms passed
upon him by returning Canadians, was likely to be brief and
unsuccessful.
The food--to turn to what is always of considerable interest on a
voyage--was good but solid. Pea soup, followed by pork chops and
plum-pudding, makes an excellent dinner when you are hungry.
Everybody was hungry the first day and also the last three days. In
between there was a cessation of appetites. The sea was never in the
least rough, but there was some slight motion on the second day out,
{10} and the majority of the nine hundred had probably never been to
sea before. The strange affliction took them unawares, and they did
not know how to deal with it. Where they were first seized, there
they remained and were ill. The sides of the ship which appealed to
more experienced travellers did not allure them. It was during this
affliction that a device which had struck me as a most excellent idea
upon going on board seemed in practice less good. This was a
railed-in sand-pit which the paternal company had constructed between
decks for the entertainment of the emigrant children. I had seen a
dozen or more at a time playing in it with every manifestation of
delight. Even now while they were ailing there, they did not seem to
mind it.
Everywhere one went on that day of tribulation one had to walk warily.
Afterwards the sea settled down into a mill pond, and every one began
to wear a cheerful and hopeful look. In the evenings, and sometimes
in the afternoons as well, some of the Scandinavians would produce
concertinas and violins, and the whole of them would dance their
folk-dances for hours. It was extraordinary how gracefully they
danced--the squat fair-haired women and the big men heavily {11}
clothed and booted. There was an attempt on the part of some of the
English people to take part in these dances, but they soon realised
their inferiority, and gave it up in favour of sports and concerts.
The sports, though highly successful in themselves, led to a slight
contretemps when the Bishop of London, who happened to be on board,
came over by request to distribute the prizes. The Scandinavians,
who quite wrongly thought they had been left out of the sports,
seized the opportunity afforded by the bishop's address (which was
concerned with our future in Canada), to form in Indian file, with a
concertinist at their head, and march round and round the platform on
which the bishop stood, making a deafening noise. It looked for a
little as if there might be a scuffle between them and the
prize-winners, but peace prevailed, though we were all prevented from
hearing what was no doubt very sound advice. Apart from this, there
was no horseplay to speak of until the last night but one, when a
rowdy set, headed by a fat Yorkshireman, chose to throw bottles about
in the dark, down in that part of the ship where about fifty men were
berthed together. For this the ringleader was hauled before the
captain and properly threatened.
{12}
Our concerts went with less éclat. They were held in the
dining-saloon, and there were usually good audiences. It seemed
however that we had only one accompanist, whose command of the piano
was limited, and in any case self-consciousness invariably got the
better of the performers at the last moment. Either they would not
come forward at all when their turn arrived, or else, having come
forward, they turned very red, wavered through a few notes and then
lost their voices altogether. Our best English concertina player, a
fat little Lancashire engineer, had his instrument seized with the
strangest noises halfway through 'Variations on the Harmonica,' and
after a manly effort to restrain them, failed and had to retire in
haste. We generally bridged over these recurring gaps in the
programme by singing 'Yip i addy.'
It was so fine most of the voyage, that one could be quite happy on
deck doing nothing at all but resting and strolling and talking. A
few of the girls skipped occasionally and some of the men boxed:
there was no real zeal for deck games. The voyage was too short, and
with the new life and the new world at the end of it we all wanted to
find out from one another what we knew--or at least what we {13}
thought--Canada would be like. We stood in some awe of returning
Canadians who talked of dollars as if they were pence, and we
wondered if we should get jobs as easily as people said we should.
Almost every type of worker was represented among us, and many types
of people.
Chief among my own particular acquaintances made on the boat were a
young lady-help from Alberta, two Russian Jews from Archangel, a
Norwegian farm hand from somewhere near the Arctic circle, two miners
from Ontario, and three small boys belonging to Perth, Scotland.
I do not know how the Russian Jews came to be on the boat. They had
some Finnish, and I suppose slipped in with the Scandinavians. They
also spoke a few words of German, which was the language we misused
together. They were brothers, good-looking men with charming
manners. The elder wore a frock coat and a bowler hat, and looked a
romantic Shylock. The other was clothed in a smock, and was hatless.
They said they had fled from the strife of Russia, and they wished
particularly to know if Canada was a free country. The younger man
was an ironworker and made penny puzzles in iron {14} which, so far
as I could make out, the elder brother invented. They had one puzzle
with them, but it was very complicated, and I was afraid that the
sale of such things in Canada might be limited, unless Canadians
fancied bewildering themselves over intricate ironwork during the
long winters. Still those two fugitives rolled Russian cigarettes
very well too, which should earn them a living.
The Norwegian was a simple youth in a queer hat, which afterwards
blew off into the sea much to his sorrow. He was very bent on
acquiring the English language during the voyage, not having any of
it to start with. I used to sit with him on one side and the small
Perthshire boys on the other, while we translated Scottish into
Norwegian and back again. The Scotch boys would inquire of me what
'hat' was in Norse, and I would point to the queer head-gear
above-mentioned, and ask its owner to name its Norwegian equivalent.
One of the things that stumped me--being a mere Englishman--was a
question put by the smallest Perth boy: 'Whit is gollasses in
Norwegian?'
It took me some time to find out what gollasses were in English, and
I don't know how to spell them now.
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