Female Emigration.

THE subject of Female Emigration having been lately brought before the public by the different Journals, we intend to publish a few articles on the subject ourselves ; and as our opinion has not altered, we publish as an introduction, our letter to Mr. Bulwer, which appeared in this Journal of February 18 th, 1834.

To H. L. BULWER, ESQ. M. P. Sydney, 20th January, 1834.
SIR, I did myself the honour of addressing you in this journal of the 28th December last;......
Three ships have arrived in this harbour during last year, freighted by Government, which altogether have disembarked on our shores, about six hundred free females, in age varying from twelve to fifty :—a very few sixty. (The Committee fancy none are sent out under fifteen, nor above thirty; but they are imposed on by the ship brokers. Women of forty or fifty enter their ages at twenty-eight, a twenty-nine, and thirty). We have received this year, by other vessels, freighted by merchants, a large accession of families, in which were comprised a large proportion of females. It is said, that not less than ten thousand souls, bond and free, have arrived in the Colony during the last two years.
The free females sent out by Government, are of very different grades as to rank and character. Some of them are well educated women, of respectable family and connexions, and of unimpeachable character. Another and larger portion consists of tradeswomen, & needle-women, & servants of good character; another portion of loose morality ; and another portion, say one-seventh of the whole, have been prostitutes in England, and are at this moment making a living in whole, or in part, by the same means. Notwithstanding this account of our new arrivals, they will prove a valuable addition to our population. Such was the scarcity of women two years ago that the female prisoners, who are generally drunken and pilfering, as well as prostitutes, were obliged to be received as inmates into our families for want of others. English families will put up with anything rather than have men to perform household duties, except those of the kitchen ; the consequence was, our domestic peace was two years ago, and theretofore, continually broken in upon by the bad behaviour of our women servants. Our homes were besieged by men at all hours of the day and night, seeking after the illicit favours of our servants ; and thus our houses were often converted into a sort of private brothels. I speak from experience. It came to my knowledge after the departure of almost every female prisoner from my house, that they had been guilty of the most scandalous indecencies, which at the time I suspected, but could not bring home to them, until by some casually, their iniquity was discovered, and they were returned by me to the factory. Two or three, however, have married from my family, conducted themselves, and still conduct themselves, with the greatest propriety; but I am convinced that these were not guilty of the crimes for which they were transported. Thus, amid the sand and mud, a candid searcher after worth, will generally discover a few jewels. The prostitutes who have arrived, will put an end to this insatiate craving after the female prisoner servants above noticed. They will establish themselves in the purlieus of our towns, and as the free women of good character will also get into service, the demand for the services of the female prisoners will decrease; they will remain in the third class of our female factory longer under sentence than formerly; and if the discipline in that establishment were worthy of the name, they would come out and return to service less viciously disposed. Our excessive demand for female labour beyond the supply, has inflamed the causes which lead our lower orders of women to be insolent, idle, and debauched. In this point of view, an addition to our female population, even of the worst description, has been attended with more good than evil. With respect to the virtuous portions of the free females sent out by Government with the proceeds of our Crown-Lands, it is to be observed, that while the Colony is benefitted more by their arrival than by the arrival of the prostitutes, yet they are all, more or less discontented, and feel themselves to have been deceived by the ship brokers and their satellites. Many of them are not receiving so much wages as they did at home; whereas, they were taught to expect a great deal more. Our wages vary from £5 to £10 a year. A few women, of very superior ability, may obtain £12, and even £14, but these are so very few that it is not worth mentioning; for such women, being excellent servants, would in good families at home, receive quite as much: so that these women are just as much dissatisfied and disappointed, as those who only receive £5, because female apparel is dealer here by 50 per cent. than it is in England, and up the country, by 75 per cent.; so that such women, and indeed most of them from the same cause, are still better off than they would have been in England by exercising the same industry and talents as they must exert here. Whether the prostitutes complain or not, I cannot say, but I should think they are the only portion who will conceive themselves benefitted by their emigration. I have said, that the great portion of the arrivals have been of loose character, needlewomen and tradeswomen (straw bonnet makers, trimming manufacturers, &c.) " As there is little employment for females of this description, they have to go to service; the consequence is, that household duties are performed by them in the most awkward manner and without being attachable to either them or their employers, the lives of both are rendered unhappy. Their wages soon sink to £5, and finding hard labour in a climate where the summer is as hot as in Spain to be painful the poor creatures sink under their novel occupations, and become dispirited and heart broken; and complain bitterly of the fine tales that were told them by the satellites of the freighters and brokers of the ships in which they arrived, and by whom they consider themselves to have been trepanned into a painful exile.

The poor girls who arrived by the Layton were extremely ill-treated in two respects; not of a sentimental or other frivolous nature, but of the most substantive kind. They were compelled to occupy a space, about one half of that which is allotted to Convict women; to feed on about half the quantity of food, biscuit excepted; and the scanty allowance a given them was, all of it, of a cheap inferior quality, except the pork. It is the custom, Sir, with many owners and freighters of ships, particularly with, those who make flaming professions of religion, to buy old biscuit, brought back in Indiamen and men of war; to soften it with water, rebake some, and mix other some with new dough. Of some such materials did the biscuit of the Layton, from its smell, appearance, taste, and purgative qualities, appear to be made. The women were not stinted in quantity. This wears the appearance of liberality; but this liberality loses much of its merit when you are informed, that they could not eat, and did not eat the quantity which must hare been allowed to them if it had been weighed out in weekly rations. The ration of a male Convict is seven pounds of beef, or four pounds of pork, weekly, with flour, peas, suet, raisins, biscuit, such as the army receives. Women are allowed two-thirds. Therefore a Convict woman's weekly allowance of beef is four pounds two-thirds. The quantity actually received by the women was under three ounces daily. I can not believe that the Captain of the vessel could have had the hardihood to order so small a quantity as 56lbs., of beef to be daily weighed out and distributed among three hundred passengers. I have no doubt, double the quantity might have been served out. But as there was no check to the rapacity of those (prostitutes and others) who had paramours on board, (the Superintendent having no real official authority, and what he assumed being exercised by him with so little judgement as to cause the women to hiss him when he went down below to interfere in their matters), it requires no low opinion of human nature to conceive, that the favourites on board would receive a double shame, at the expense of the chaste and the feeble. On the other hand, the Surgeon of the vessel testifies, that it came to his knowledge, that great numbers received only two ounces of meat a day, on such occasions as they happened to appeal to him on the score of short allowance. Another hardship, if not gross fraud and inhumanity practised on the poor, confiding, friendless kidnapped girls, was, that the vessel was crowded more like a slave ship, than a transport conveying persons to New South Wales under the auspices of the British Government. Above three score women were put on board, beyond what the Surgeon had agreed to attend upon. How they came there, I dare say will surprise the London Committee; but to me it is no surprise. I have seldom seen anything transacted in this Colony, by flaming professors of religion, but was more tricky, than what your ordinary Christians are in the habit of practicing. The consequences of the crowded state of the vessel were, a stench below, comparable only with that which exists in slave ships. The water closets got out of repair, and their contents occasionally overflowed the deck. This was horrible at any time, but in bad weather, nothing could exceed the confusion and bitter wranglings which raged among the poor kidnapped creatures. Children and women often cried and sank down with hunger, nausea, and faintings, one or all, and though no pestilential disease broke out, the vessel having made a tolerable passage, yet there was a great deal of sickness on board. The effects of this crowding were increased by the woman not being able to remain on the deck but a very short time, as they cumbered it, and were discouraged by the sailors at all times from remaining there. The women and girls therefore of a superior class, may be said to have been prisoners in their berths. There was but one iron boiler in use for the women, and after the meat had been boiled in it, their humble pittance of tea was thrown into the same greasy half cleaned vessel. These, Sir, are same of the consequences of a slothful, vain, idle trusting of the health and lives of unoffending, confiding strangers, to the conscience of professed piety, rather than to a vigilant, suspicious controul and regulation of everything, into which masked avarice can by any means intrude itself.
The regulation of Convict transports, both male and female, are as perfect as those of a man of war, so far as circumstances permit; and unless the Government at home, in cases where the public funds of a Colony are concerned, will insist on like regulations being adopted on board transports for free women, the latter will ever be made a prey. Never mind whether the Captain, Officers, Surgeon, Superintendent, be married or not. The Surgeons of Convict transports are always Naval Officers accustomed to command. If he himself be not " chaste as ice, and pure as snow," he will at all events, as he values his commission and future employment, conduct himself like a gentleman ; and his private amours on board, will be so secret, as to give no offence to the most chaste. He will from policy, if not from purity, take care to charm the well behaved and respectable, by the delicacy of his attentions, the gravity of his deportment, and the firm command of official authority; and therefore, it is the most imbecile cant to object to the possibility of the Surgeon's not coming out of such a furnace of temptation encumbered with a little dross of human infirmity. Secret fornication on board ship, is no doubt a sin, however retired and concealed; but open prostitution is a public evil, only to be put down by a strong hand. And those who attempt more than this, will generally be found lucre losing hypocrites, or imbecile fanatics.

I consider, that for the present, we have a sufficient stock of free females of the different descriptions above set forth. Yet, I feel confident, that a thousand farm girls and women, bred up in the farm-houses and cottages of England and particularly Scotland, would be of immense benefit to the Colony. We shall want no others for a series of years.

The same of men. We want no more mechanics, nor labourers; except it be carpenters, wheel wrights, and shipwrights; but it does not seem just to invite them, for they only come to be disappointed in wages. Their arrival would be good for us, but bad for them ; and therefore, I cannot think it fair to tempt them to emigrate, without telling them what they have to expect. However industrious, sober people, of the common mechanical trades, cannot but eat and drink well, in a Colony where food is cheap. But, on the other hand, clothing, tools, and rents, are high.

But, of single farming men, who can plough, sow, reap, stack, thresh, &c., we cannot receive too many. We could find employment for a thousand of such men every year. But these men would be very uneasy, unless at the same time, by other vessels, a thousand farming girls and women were sent out to be united to them in due time. Families should never come out here. So long as convicts continue to be sent out, families will never get employment at adequate wages. Men and women should come out single, and marry here as they find opportunity, and are enabled to provide for a family. This they cannot do till they have been a year or two in the Colony, and have got acquainted with our localities. It is easy to imagine, that a couple marrying before they leave England, would be very miserable here; whereas the very same couple, coming out single, and marrying here, after a year or two, would do exceedingly well.

I have the honour to remain,
Your most obedient humble servant,
E. -. - HALL,
Proprietor and Editor-of the-Sydney Monitor.

 The Sydney Monitor 18 March 1835,