MRS. CHISHOLM, THE EMIGRANTS FRIEND.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 422, 13 March 1880, Page 6

MRS. CHISHOLM, THE EMIGRANTS FRIEND.

MOTHER OF THE LADY MAYORESS OF DUBLIN. The following particulars relative to Mrs. Chisholm, the " Emigrants' friend," mentioned in the Lady Mayoress of Dublin's telegram, may be of interest—they are summarised from David Blair's " History of Australasia :" —Mrs. Chisholm arrived in Sydney in 1839, with her children and husband, Captain Archibald Chisholm, of the Madras Army, who had been making a tour of the Australian colonies during a limited sick leave. On returning to India he decided to leave his family in New Soiith Wales. . . . It was the unprotected position of female and often friendless emigrants that awakened Mrs. Chisholm's warmest sympathies. She commenced her work by

gathering information and acquiring the confidence of the working classes. She found youug women who had emigrated lodging in tents with companions of indifferent character, others wandering, friendless through the streets of Sydney. Many of them having been collected in rural districts, knew more of cows and pigs than housework, and, if engaged in town, soon lost their situations, and were superseded by more accomplished servants from ships which arrived daily. Mrs. Chisholm begin by appealing to the Press and to private individuals on behalf of the poor destitute girl immigrants. At first she met with much discouragement, a few civil speeches no assistance. But she pressed on her plan of a " Home," and when almost defeated, was nerved to determination by the sight of a Highland beauty—- " poor Flora"—whom she had known a happy, hopeful girl, drunken and despairing, contemplating, and hastening to commit suicide. Mrs. Chisholm offere-1 to devote her time gratuitously to a " home of protection," and to endeavor to procure situations for the immigrant girls unengaged and out of place in the country—an offer which was eventually accepted after " she ha 1 given an undertaking not to put the Government to any expense !" The Government building appropriated to the home consisted of a low wooden barrack 14ft. square. She found it needful for the protection of the characters of the girls to sleep on the premises. A store-room, 7ffc. square, without a fire-place, and infested with rats, was cleared out for her accommodation. There she dwelt—eating, drinking, and sleepiog—dependent on the kindness of a prisoner employed in the adjoining Government Printing Office for a kettle of hot water for tea, her only luxury ; and there she laid the foundation of a system to which thousands owe their happiness in this world, and in the world to come—saved from temptation to vice, and put on the road to industrious independence. But there was no machinery extant for finding occupation for her charges, so Mrs. Chisholm resolved to send them into the country. The first dray that came to the door was seat away empty. Frightened with foolish 'board ship stories of blacks and bushrangers, not one girl would go. A second attempt, the first failure having been kept a secret, was successful. Mrs. Chisholm, at her own risk and expense, took a party up the Hunter river i district by steamboat. The enterprise was \ considered so Quixotic by her friends that, as she sat on the deck in the centre of the troop | of girls, no one of her acquaintance dared to j expose himself to the ridicule of owning ac- ] quaintence by offering any refreshment. Yet her plan succeeded ; the girls were well placed in the families of respectable married j people, and committees were induced to undertake the charge of branch homes in the inte- I rior. The bush journeys were repeated with parties of young women, varying from sixteen I to thirty, who were conveyed to various locali- | ties, where she went from farm to farm, scru- J tinising the characters of the residents, before she trusted them with " her children." Very j soon the fathers, brothers, sons, and husbands, I claimed the same care, and asked to be per- | mitted to form part of her parties. Her ' journeys became longer, and her armies larger; i 144 souls left Sydney, which increased on the | road to 240, in one party, in drays and oji foot, I Mrs. Chisholm leading the way on horseback, j The abuse of power by captains, and the immorality of the inferior sort o F surgeons, at that time engaged in the Australian trade, j were checked by a prosecution which she compelled the Governor, Sir George Gipps, to institute against parties who had driven a girl I mad by their violence. That trial established ; a precedent and checked the abuse. , By the end of 1842 Mrs. Chisholm had succeeded in placing comfortably 2000 immi- i grants of both sexes ; and then, when slowly j recovering from the effects of a serious illness, | brought on by her exertions, she published a book, which did good service in the cause of ' immigration reform. The whole cost to the | Government of the guarding and distribution j of the immigrants was little more than £IOO ; ! the other expenses were borne by Mrs. Chis- i holm and her friends. It was while making forced marches at the head of parties of immi- j grants, as far as 300 miles into the far in- j terior, sometimes sleeping at the stations of j wealthy settlers ; sometimes in the huts of poor i immigrants or prisoners ; sometimes camping out in the bush, teaching the timid awkward peasantry of England, Scotland, and Ireland how to " bush it ;" comforting the women, nursing the children, putting down any contented or forward spirits among the men ; now taking a few weary children into her covered tandem cart ; now mounting on horseback and galloping over (a short cut through the hills to meet her weary caravan, with supper foraged from the hospitable settlers. It was in the midst of marches in which she j managed the discipline, route, the commissiarat, the hospital, and the billeting, all herself, with such aides-de-camp as each army happened to furnish, that she commenced another great work subsidiary to colonisation, the " Volunrary Statements of the People of New South Wales," for the use of the Home country.

In 1846 Mrs. Chisholm sailed for England, and before her departure a committee, which consisted of some of the foremost men of Sydney, presented her with an address and testimonial raised by public subscription. During the time she spent in Australia, Mrs. Chisholm, without wealth or rank, or any support except what her earnest philanthropy gradually acquired, provided for 11,000 souls. During her sojourn in England she did more. With less than £2OOO, between 1850 and 1852, she personally sent out more than 1000 immigrants of the best class, and advised, corresponded with, or otherwise assisted, tens of thousands. Her benevolent labors were continued up to the very day of her death.