LETTERS FROM MOTUIHI.

Auckland Star, Volume V, Issue 1493, 23 November 1874, Page 2

LETTERS FROM MOTUIHI.

As stated in our issue of Saturday, we have before us quite a pile of letters from lmmiorants in quarantine, from which, as fairly indicating the feelings with which the detenu* view their confinement, extracts will be interesting to many of our readerß.

STOP THIKP. One writer thus delivers himself on the social state as be alleges it exists in quarantine : — "It is awfully tiresome to stop here. Talk about thieves, Whitechapel is quite respectable compared to this. I have lost a shirt, two pocket knives, pocket handkerchief, and several other things. Last night when I went to bed, I hung my hat up on a nail, beside the door, half-an-hour afterwards Isaw a man deliberately take it. I sung out. but he was out of the house in the dark directly. I accused him of it this morning, and told the doctor I would write to the Immigration Commissioners, and have every box searched. He only laughed at me. But I would have done it. When I went to fetch the rations for breakfast, 1 found some one had put it on the nail where it was last night, so that it is all right. They talk of sending an account of the bad management into Government, but I don't think they have the sense enough for that, although it richly deserves it—for immigration is a muddle from beginning to end, all through the want of a little judicious management. I have no wonder the people of the* Dorette kicked up a row, for although it is six months since they were here, it is just the same. The shed for the luggage is about one-sixth of the size it ought to be, and was not roofed when we first came. Half the luggage is left uncovered, at the mercy of the rain. There are two houses for all of us. About eighty single men sleep in one room on tho floor, for there are no bunks. The married people are worse, for there, women, men, and children are all huddled on the iloor something like animals, without the smallest pretension to decency. To mend the matter, our water is very near run out, so I suppose they will soon have to take us off. After all it is quite good enough for such pigs as are here, for they are only one degree removed from the animal species, and some not that. But I don't care, I'm happy. Their conversation is beautiful, something sublime, in fact they swear quite eloquently, Cockneys are nowhere to them."

IN HOSPITAL. On sanitary matters a writer says :—"We had only one child in the hospital yesterday, but to-day two men have gone in ; and no wonder, if you was to see the refuse which is thrown round the building. And if they don't take us out quick we ehall soon have something forty times worse than scarlet fever." On the same subject another correspondent writes: —"There is no disease amongst the children at all, there are two children in the hospital now, one with the chicken pox, and another with inflammation on the chest, but we shall have a long tale to tell you when w© get ashore what has

CRTXB ! been the cause of this sickness."

On the important subject of "grub," which is at all times a matter of deepi nterest to immigrants, we read the following complaint:— " When the butcher told you that we had more than could be made use of, he told you a barefaced lie, and he must have known it, for the purser of the ship had to complain of the shortness of provisions so much so that he had to get hard biscuit from the ship, and serve it out to the people on the ground. And as to fruit, we have never seen any, there have been several boxes ef oranges come ashore, but to look at them has been our share. There is a lot of carrots come every time the steamer comes, and some of them are so tough and stringy that you can't pull them ia pieces when they are boiled; we have potatoes also, and sometimes one-half of what we have served out to us are rotten ; we have boiled meat every day and Boup, and very near every one on the Island has got the diarrhoea, some of them are very bad. I believe if we stop here much longer we shall be worse than we were when we came, for all the water is done. We have to go to all quarters of the ground to get water for cooking, and have to use some that is not fit for pigs to drink. To-day we have got about 2 lb. of bread extra for the children, but I don't know whether it will be so every day or not; or whether it is to make up for what was short last week or not, but one or two days last week there was something like 80 lbs of meat short, and the purser had to make a row about it, but I hope this will not last long, and we must bear it as well as wo can, but it is very mortifying to think that we are imprisoned here wasting our precious time for nothing." A JOLLY DOG. But it is evident that all the passengers do not look so dolefully on the commissariat, for one jolly fellow writes:—"l am perfectly happy, aud have any amount to eat, rabbits for breakfast, rump steak and oyster, sauce for lunch, leg of mutton, potatoes and soup for dinner, tea and dry bread for tea, rabbits for supper, so I am living like a Duke. A LONG- GROWL. One individual has not yet got over the annoyances of landing, and the feeling has been kept alive in his mind by subsequent experiences of this sickness. He writes in the following strain :—''Now I will just tell you the way in which we have been served since we came here, we were landed in boats from the ship, and our boxes were brought ashore after us, and the boats could not get to dry land by twenty or thirty yards, and we had to go into the water nearly to our middle, to carry the boxes out of the

boats, a lot of men »»' s^f To^e 2fo? months, »»4,» f'era'°?g^elf stSod in tie them as *e«k » landed, waistw»ter nearly all tteday-«° ing to carry theb°? M*h~ S« have to emthlsame thing JfJ-^y^ a Httte landed there is a very » t fhpn there is another nuisance, that w a SSsSSSrag the ,Mp, and nailed tight up and hooped to remonstrate with the doctor., and he told Mm the? would wash, and the'-poor man's Scsand everything stands there *.-heap of ruins If that is the way poor people arc to that are equally absurd and ridiculous, but I will tell you all when I see yo Q/

ANOTHER O-V-OWU .'/ One correspondent, after detailing a Ion" list of physical grievances including cold a swollen face, a boil on the eg/toothache, and the ever astng < ray," which are impartially debuted among his acquaintances, says :-" WejAall neTeAe well so long as we are stack hew. Will you let us know if you can hoar of any chance of our being released. We think thfsTs a great waste oi time idling about here. There will be, a riot, or something if we have to stop here long. I assure you that there is no disease now tbat we need to stop here. I "hey would take the healthy ones away it would be better. And there is another thing that is most disgusting. The married people sleep in a room above the single men, and we have to go through a portion of their room to our staircase ; and there are no closets in our room, and the married women have to go down stairs, and the filthy language that is used to them by the young men is fn^tjnl, some of them standing there right before them naked." The following mild complaint will be appreciated by many a mother :— "The children's clothes are getting worn out, for they have worn more clothes since we came on board the ship and here than ever they did in double the time at home

GIVE IT TO THE STAR, ! The following correspondence is a criticism on the letter of a correspondent in the columns of this journal, and our remarks on information received respecting the state ot things on the island :—" We write these few lines to you with rather depressed spirits in consequence of a paragraph which appears in the Evb.visg Star of the 17th inst , which states that in the case of a man named Slyfield being a very serious case, which is not the case, he was only taken to the hospital, on Sunday and is now able to sit up in bed. and progressing favourably. With regard bo the child Underwood, that is true. And then the paper states that the complaints of the immigrants are being redressed. ~S\ ith regard to water the paper states that barrels of'wator have been sent to supply all wants, that is an untruth, there has not been a drop of water sent to the island, there has been three barrels sent to carry water from one side of the island to the other, and that water is not fit for swine to drink. It is the water, and nothing else, that is causing people to be sick. And the paper also states that the saloon passeDgers have been kept separate from the immigrants during the voyage out, which is also an untruth, for the single women and also the children generally have had free access to the poop deck, amongst the saloon passengers, and the saloon passengers have likewise mixed amongst the immigrants at seryice on Sundays. And the paper also states they and their belongings have been fumigated, and so have the immigrants and their belongings in a most shameful manner, as one poor man's things where put into the fumigating oven, and they came out a mass of charred ruins from the fire, and others whose clothing and boxes were completely spoiled. If no danger can be apprehended from their release, I think it equally applies to us, as we have been subjected to more fumigation than they have. And with regard to tho young girl, (adult) she is suffering from quinsey, to which she is subject. With regard to the complaints of the saloon passengers, in occupying the same building |as the Immigrants, they had the best portion of the building, and the space alotted to tw3nty-five or thirty of them, is equal to the space allotted to twenty families, each family averaging £ye persons ; and we are all lying on the floor, without a bedstead or anything ; and at first when we arrived here there was no screens, all in an open room, and had to dress and undress before every body. But after, we got some canvas and made temporary screens, just to hide ourselves a little. And they say that the want of proper closets, is a source of great annoyance, we have been several days without closets altogether, and ib has been a source of great annoyance to us as well as to them. And then the paper states that some of the girls have not washed for three days, the married people have never been three days without washing, and I think a strong lot of healthy young women, as they are, need not be without washing so long, unless they are too idle to avail themselves of the opportunity of washing themselves in the same dirty water we have. They have to use tho same water for tea, and they have never been three days without tea yet, and with regard to the idea that poor old Mr. Collins has got into his head, we have all got the same idea in our heads, and we feel assured that we never shall be well as long as we have this filthy water to drink ; and, also, idling our precious time away to no earthly usa. It is the general opinion of all the immigrants that another medical man should be sent to inspect them, and at least release those who are strong and healthy. Being kept here yiill be a means of making them idle, which will be hard to shake off afterwards. I should be glad if you could insert this in the paper, in order to let the public know the state we are in. I send this to you, st the request of the immigrants, to see if you could do any thing towards obtaining our release. Hoping to see this in the paper or a summary of it at least."