VISIT TO AN EMIGRANT SHIP.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 430, 8 July 1881, Page 3 (Supplement)

VISIT TO AN EMIGRANT SHIP.

<£he following is the article which Miss Charlotte G. O'Brien contributed to the Pall Mall Gazette, of the Oth May, and to which attention was directed by Mr. (TDonnell in the House 01 Commons on Monday night :—: — The great bay of Queenstown was flooded with light and sunshine when we stepped on board the tender which takes the emigrants to the ship at the mouth of the harbour. I, coming from one of the chief emigrating counties of Ireland, bad long wished to see for myself under what conditions the voyage was made, and also to observe the type shown by the emigrants when the individuals were unknown to me personally. The pier was crowded, mostly with young men and women, a few of the latter carrying young children. Each emigrant must bring on board a mattress, tins, and plate. At first, the bustle of departure, in a few instances the farewells, the buying of little pots tf shamrocks for the love of the old land, and all the coming and going consequent on the moving of lHggage, prevented my being able to judge of the individual faces. Once off, hoover, it became, possible to distinguish. Sorrow brings out latent •expression, and the evidences of fresh sorrow were on almost every face. Poverty was written in large letters there — ignorance, weakness, too, and indecision. A soft, gentle, innocent- looking fioe'e, marked not with crime or even intemperance, but with a hopeless submission to daily want. They were faces needing to be hardened, weldtd, and ground ; not dull, far from ir, but inapt, tremulous, long-suffeiing. Their needs are supplied by America. Whether for good or evil, for righteousness or for wickedness, the Irishman who comes home from America comes home a stronger being ; and the strength and independence begotten of American thought is to-day springing like new bluod through the veins of Ireland : but, looking on those poor, I thought of the words " sinless sorrow," and felt them true. I went down among the people, first attracted by a gentlefaced country man with wife and children. He was from Limerick, his story typical. His first cousin returned from America last year and spent two months with him, and at the end of this time he went "back to America, without a word of promise or hope. One day this Spring a letter arrived ; it contained emigration tickets for the whole family — father, mother, and two or three little ones. I saw another family a few days ago going at the expense (nearly £80) of a nephew and sister. I spoke next to two hearty, merry girls from Dublin. Their bright grey eyes were full of hope and laughter, not, as in the cases of most there, dimmed with the tears of many days. They were sisters', going to lowa, had paid their own way. and seemed full of confidence. Near thi-m was a young fellow in a brilliant green and gold Land League tie. Only one really old man was on board, and I spoke to him. Ue was from Loughrea ; his son was taking him out. I asked were the people better off than last year in his .country. " No, nor so well ; 'tis feared the Land League will fail." The deck of the ship seemed crowded, but in fact only 400 were there, a third of the full number the ship is supposed to carry. Thus far the emigrants. Now for their manner of life. I was shown the ship by a Government official, and I state nothing but what I ! myself saw. My seeing, which might be deceptive, was confirmed to me in all its worst particulars by this official, whose duty especially connects him with these emigrant ships. It is not necessary to say that wherever the sacred foot of wealth trod there all was gold and silver, shining brass, cleanliness, comfort, -and decency. We had come on board, however, to see the emigrants, and emigrants' quarters we were determined to see. " They are very "bad ; you would not like to see them." But we insisted. First, then, we went down into a large dark hold. This was the quarter of the single men. A memory of the descriptions of slave-ships flashed across me, and below this place our guide showed us a deep hole. " I could not take you down ; it is much worse than what you see." But my business was with the women's quarters, and we went on there. Between two decks, better lighted than the men's quarters, was >-p large space, open from one side of the ship to the other. From either side of a long central walk to the outer walls of the ship were slurtg two enormous hammocks, one suspended about three feet from th^eiloor, the other above the lower one. What was going on in the 'two upper hammocks I could not see, but I presume they were the 3ame as those below. I suppose each of these hammocks carries about one hundred persons. They were made of sail cloth, and being suspended all around from hooks, were perfectly flat. Narrow strips of sail cloth divide this great bed into berths. These strips of cloth when the mattresses were out formed divisions about eight inches high ; when the mattresses are in it must be almost one level. Now in these beds lie hundreds of men and women. Any man who comes with a woman who is or calls herself his wife sleeps by right in the midst of hundreds of young women, who are compelled to live in his presence day and night ; if they remove their clothes it is under his eyes — if they lie down to rest it is beside him. It is a shame even to speak of these things ; but to destroy such an evil it is necessary to face it. Do not loot on these abodes of misery now in daylight and open for inspection — they are empty, swept, and garnished ; think that in the darkness of the night, the ship pitching in mid-ocean, a glimmering lamp or two makes visible to you this mass of moaning humanity. Look on that young mother with two or three helpless - babes in the agonies of sea-sickness, unable to move but over the prostrata bodies of her fellow-sufferers. Look at this innocent girlchild — lying among dissolute men and abandoned women — half stupefied with suffocation and sea-sickness, amid the curses and groans of hundreds. And if she arise and flee to save her soul, whither shall she go ? Again she must tread on the writhing bodies of men and women. Bat the picture is too horrible to be looked on —

the sounds too dreadful to be listened to. This is no brutal and impure dream ; this is the truth, the living horror menacing the life, honour, and soul of hundreds and thousands of our fellow-country-women. The ship on which I saw these things, being supposed to carry in this manner 1000 steerage passengers, carried last year on one voyage 1775 emigrants. A woman may well ask what right men have in their quarters at all ; and women may well say if there is Government inspection by men and they condone this we have a right to ask that a staff of women inspectors, who would not condone such things, should be appointed to protect their own weak ones. This touches England almost more nearly than Ireland, for my countrymen hardly ever go singly, but in batches of from six to twelve, " neighbouring " boys and girls, who ars well able to take care of themselves. Alany, even as it is. do go down beneath the waves of temptation, and, seeing what they have to face on first going forth from their simple homes, it is do wonder. But Irishwomen are taught from the cradle to respect themselves. How deep a degradation they must feel on being compelled to live in the presence of men other than their own fathers ani brothers those who know them best can best testify. Though I, as an Irishwoman, am conversant with uncomplaining misery, I never have been so deeply impressed by the long suffering of the silent multitude as in seeing what I then saw. That the ships of some of these lines are not so abominable as that I saw is at least a comfort ; but these things should not depend on the sense of right or money interests of shipowners. Governments protect and inspect property of various kinds. Should they not above all protect defenceless human beings, especially women and children ? Women have a right to ask that the interests of women should be under the protection of women. Men have too often learned to condone and accustom themselves to terrible evils. Let these things come into the hands of women who are not hardened, who can see with their eyes and hear with their ears. I grieved to see the American flag — rightly dear to us Irish, even as the unseen flag that wavet only in the hearts of a faithful people— floating over a whited sepulchre such as that beautiful boat, haunted by the memories of sin, full of ravening wickedness and all uncleanness. In the House of Commons, Mr. Chamberlain, in answer to a question by Mr. O'Donnell, said :—: — The circumstances to which reference is made in the question of the hon. member were brought to my attention some days before this letter was published in the Pall Mail Gazette by the Chief Secretary of Ireland, and I at once made some preliminary inquiries into the matter. On the publication of Miss O' Brien's letter I communicated with the managers of the five lines of British steamships which take Irish emigrants from Liverpool and Queenstown, and I have now received from all these managers a most emphatic and categorical denial that any such circumstances as are related in the article could possibly have taken place with regard to their lines of steamships. I have, however, thought the matter of so much importance that I have directed Captain Grissel, the principal officer of the Board of Trade, to visit Queenstown and Liverpool to make special inquiries into the matter, and Mr. Gray, assistant in the Marine Department of the Board of Trade, who is now in Liverpool, j has been instructed to make further inquiries. (Hear, hear.) I have asked Miss O'Brien to give me the names of the ships to which her letter referred, and to give me further particulars, which would enable me to make a more careful and thorough investigation into the matter. (Hear, hear.) I hope that, under the circumstances the House will think it right to suspend any definitive judgment on the standpoint which has been taken, and as soon as the correspondence has been completed I will lay it on the table. (Hear, hear.)