“PLEASE SUPPLY ONE WIFE.”

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 6689, 25 September 1882, Page 3

“PLEASE SUPPLY ONE WIFE.”

(TA* World.) 1 ; . The good people 1 must have enjoyed themselves in Grosvennr House last week; 'ihe cream of the ph lanthr pie world was there., and a colonial -knight', presided over the assembled virtue. The subscription list was, it is true, depressing, , but, the reports of the Women’s Emigration and Aid-in-Going-iO-the-Bad Society were to encouraging ! Mrs Jelly by was- there, beaming on Mp, Quale ; and Mrs Pardiggle, undaunted in well-doing, had brought all the ’ little Pardiggles r and their last month’s pocket money, ■: to ’ swell the fund and her own importance. Miss vVisk also contributed—her presence ; arid if none of the Hike, from whence doth comq the hope of' the 'penitent "barglar, "'countenanced the gathering, it must have .been owing to their pre-occupation in another, and, perhap*, rival association. There'were reports read, ..and. resolutions passed. Two hundred women had been btfore'the Committee; andlOQ had been disposed of, while there were 42'“.cases," more or less hopeless, still on hand., ~'l.be, eovgrant women were “distributed.” —47 to Canada, where there is an overplus'of.’the’ article ; six to Africa, where they are scarce three to Victoria, which wants nope of. them ; 27 to Queensland, where they, will swelter in sunshine ; and one to Oswego, evidently under tbe belief that corn-flour is a nutrition- artiu e of diet.; The hat was then passed round. ■ with saddening results ; encouraged by which, two impulsive philanthropists declared that they would have given fifty pounds, apiece if two other Capitalists had eabscribtd a like amount. But it being clear that nobody bad, the philanthropists p. cketed their chequebooks, and obtained a liberal reputation at tbe cost Off twocheap little speeches. Archdeacon Lander—who is a Canadian Archdeacon—recommended Canada ; and S.r Siui Saumt-1— whose official duty . it is to recommend New South Wales proceeded to perform that lightsome task. “ The climate, was genial as colonial climates invariably aie on’ platforms and in pamphlets—and, of course, the “ resources’’were “boundless,” and ladies much in demand. • But—Sir Saul regretted—he could not bet on the matter to the extent; of. even a : guinea sußicription, though, like Molidre’s Hebrew Baron, he, was puite ready to give bis word of honor for the statemeht:'' Sir ’Ba'rtle Frere tho ight the colonists he knew best wanted girls‘ unfettered by home ties,’ which is perhaps more strictly true than the amiable XTo-’Cohsul imagines ; which'suggested to Madame de KoebeW.that 1 the emigrating -young, women - ought to .be ‘ watched liver,’ instead of.' being left ‘ entirely to strangers.’ Then the philanthropists'went home to ! dinner, having shared in a most enjoyable meeting, which cost them nothing and was unruffled by vulgar people, who' are apt to ssk embarrassing questions and tell awkward truths.

. The 1 idies, of course, rattled off their well- ■ learnt lessons, perfectly unconscious that they were telling “a lot of quite too awful fibs,” and ■ we would not, for the world, even insinuate ■ that Sir Henry Barkly, Hr Bartle Frere, or i Sir Saul S irauel was saving of the truth. The late Satrap of the Cape, being familiar with the uxorious habits of the Zulus, doubtless imagines that South Africa possesses absorptive power for any amount of ma rimonial candi istss ; and the presiding philanthropist of the Crosvennr Home Pardiggles has been so long in Engl md that possibly be pictures erotic gold-diggers still “barleyiag” wives with speaking-trumpets from Port Jacks-m Heads. But if Sir Saul Samuel is of the belief that, in counselling the J-11 y bye and Quales to shoot a cargo of girls on the shores of any ov-r-manned colony, he is doing a kindness eith;r to these cockney Sabines or to the coinnisi Romans, who are so ready to offer them a share of a “ cockatoo ” hut or a miner’s tent, it is evident that the Agent-General of New South Wales has still a good deal to learn. It is very pretty to tell of stalwart sheph-rds swearing over disrupted buttons, and gold-diggers cooking their own pork and bea is, and eating them on the edge of their solitary “ bunks.” It is, of cour-e, harrowing to hear of governesses in England passing rich on twenty pounds a year, and-Irish mods-of-all work insolent in British Columbia at thirty dollars a month, two holidays a week, and “ no boots to brush ” —a negro or a Frenchman being reset ved for that domestic duty. It is, we dare say, not altogether mythical that a queue of Californians waited their turn to peep through a knot-hole in a log but on the chance of seeing a mid-i'e-age-1 woman tossing flap jacks in the frying-pan, and that in Caiiboo a circle of g Hints danced tor half an hour round a stray bonnet, in honor of the nameless female to whom it might have belonged. Why, therefore, argues Mrs Jellyby, should not the superabundant pork and beans be cooked and shared by some of the superabundant women ? Why, echoes Miss Wisk, should the mouth not be sent to the “damper” if the damper cannot be fetched to the mouth ? Is the joyous Sybarite from Nevada to pay for a champagne bath to a S m Franciscan Lais, while the Lou-ion bonnetmaker preserves a precarious virtue ou three-aud-sixpeuce a week ? Why, writes , the rancher’s wife from Manitoba, should I fry beefsteaks scmpiternaliy, when there are gir-e in England ready to do so for ten pounds a year and their victuals ? or bear the tantrums ' of Boston Bridget, when, at the coat of_ the Groayeuor House ladies, ! can obtain a paragon in the rongh, who will curtsey at every word, and “Yea, mum,” me from morn till dewy eve

For this reason. The ladies who wrote so affectiogly to the Emigration Society of the ease with which girls get married in lowa or South Australia knew perfectly well that they are simply trying to tempt them with this bait,when the least of their wishes is to get them married after they ’arrive. ' What they wish is not moral y oung Cbloes to become the brides of colon! d Strepbous, but strong ma ds who will' scour a wooden house fur a reasonable number of dollars a year. Of course they can get any. number of girls if tbey will import them and pay for,their passage. But they do not care to run any such risks, since they are well aware that, sooner or later, the girl may marry, and snap her fingers at her employer. But what kiud of husbands must girls “ sent out” to a colony expect ? They may be models of modesty, but tbey will never be credited with anything save a soiled reputation, “They did not leave the Old Country for nothing,” is sure to be the hint; and a husband who discovers, when too late, that this verdict was far from censorious, is apt to depart in a greater hurry than he came. A youth who marries a girl without a history, whose relations, parents, or antecedents are all to be taken on trust, is not lisely to be of the best reputation, or more delicate in his selections than the Illinois youth who, when requested to demonstrate his means, declared that there was on his farm as much thrown to the “ pigs every day as would keep ton women." In pre-P, and O. days an East India factor would “ order ” of his agent three pipes of port “ and one good wife;” and in the anxiety of Louis XiV. to people blew Franco be despatched regular cargoes of potential wives to the colonists. They were regularly assorted—noble damsels, a trifle fly-blown, perhaps, for gentlemen of like repute and rank, and wives suited for bourgeois, officer, . peasant—each with , a fitting dowry paid’put of the privy purao in her- trousseau.' But these were, in a manner, official brides, an i in ' the eyes ,of 'loyal subjects, bore the stamp of the best ol Governments. , In old daps wives were regu iarly sold to the Virginia adventureis at prices Vaiying from'one hundred pounds of tobacco for a young woman “pure and inconupi,” to a termagant from Bridewell, who was knocked down ’with all faults,’.’ for a demi John ol hew rum.' But in time some speculat ve soul made “ a corner” in wives, until the price of virgins nse to one hundred and fifty pounds.of tobacco, the stock of that article being 'small; while damaged goods—“and bo questions asked” fetched, fairly remunerative figures. But these are scarcely the staple out of. wham to make the mothers of self-respecting colonists. It is not f .ir to the children of the future., to have their mother’s history pointed to, as will undoubtedly be the case, no mat ter what her character, if'she is to be “ sent out ” in ; the Groaveuor House fashion. Twenty years ago such a cargo, arrived in Vancouver Island urid-r episcopal auspices. 1 It was certai.dy not very well sifted ; and thougb most of. the damsels married after a sort, a girl of that ship’s company is still a proverb in the province. It is popularly supposed that anything is good, enough for the colonies—goods, liquor, or women. 1 Quite a mistake! Thucolouists are hard to please, arid have already an ‘ample stook’ of people, wi b queer.reputations and awkwardlyjoiuted records. If they-wish wives or ser-, yants they have no, trouble to obtain either, without, Grosveoor,House pandering either to their parsimony or to their vices; At Home ’there is‘ room for every girl ' who" desires to, enter “ service,”/if only she will lake the trouble to learn her' business. A reasonable cook, is at ( ci ; premium ; a tolerable housemaid commands ‘her’ ‘5 place." If she gobs to the bad: here.she will be ,likely to proceed to that undesirable’goal a thousand times more quickly there.- ■ Melbourne, for its siae, is as' naughty! a city as London ; and the fathers of marriageable daughters find them hang ds'heavily on their hands in Ontario as they, do m Oxfordshire.'- . ' . , ■ ■ '

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