The Express.
London, England, 1853-08-27 00:00:00

YOUNG IMMIGRANTS.

(Frosis the d•fdnid' Chrinicle.)

Nothing is more common than to hear newly-ar-
rived immigrants con plaining of disappointment and vexa-
tion oa their arrival in a young colony. It has beennieacrav-
ing ncoessity for colonies to call for an incessant increase of
population, and to employ every available method of in-
ducing the home people to abandon their fatherland, and
to commit themselves to new enterprise in some distant
dependency. In aid of such persuasions the British
newspapers are enlist A, correspondence from the colo- !
nies is inserted_ in their columns, and leaders are
prompted. Colonisation societies are also formed, and
the parties active in promoting them are eager
in agitation, availing themselves of every opportu-
city of impressing the necessity and communicating the
desire of emigration. Pamphlets aro written, and larger
works published, di.playing the prominent points of the
general subject, and discussing the particular merits of
each settlement. The present season of golden expectations
renders the work of persuasion peculiarly easy. Of the
books and pamphlets written to promote or direct the
scheme the variety, in point of quality and value, is great ;
but all contribute something to the general stock of infor-
mation. Many are in the main truthful—many sketch
somewhat enchanting pictures of colonial life—many are
mere compilations, but these made up of veritable docti-
'imam of vie various experience and impressions of settlers.
But, notwithstanding all the knowledge which may be
gathered from these means of instruction, it is rare that
emigrants come away with the self-same kind of ha-
oression with which th'y spend the first week
in Australis. There has been an excess of the
sanguine, and- now there is a deficiency. The
blame may not be attributable to the authors and in-
formants. Perhaps nothing was further from their
thoughts than the design to mislead. Nevertheless they
have done so, for exact and available truth has somehow or
other been overlooked—at least it has not been seized. Yet

the thing is easily ace nutted for. The persons intending to
emigrate are for the most part unhabituated to draw precise
and just conclusions from books. However right an author
or informant may be, therefore, they will be wrong in the
expectation they form from his statements. The same re-
mark holds with regard to olwervation and reflection. No-
thing can train to the proper exercise of these but experi-
ence, mil that, when people emigrate, has yet to be ac-
quired. Hence it is that so many persons feel a chill of dis-
appointment on their arrival on the strange shores of a
colony, and find it bard to refrain from accusing all
writers, lecturers, and advisers, in their fatherland, of
having con.pireil to deceive them. For all this there is no
cure but time and patience. The fretfulness of new-corners
wears off with profitable occupation. The necessity for
exertion makes them forget the advice they received, the
impressions with which they came away from home, and
the ill augury of their landing.
But if very correct information cannot he imparted on
the English side, in regard to the numberless details which
make up the substance of the life of a stranger in the colo-
nies, and if, consequently, it is not possible to prevent mis-
conceptions and disappointments, it is quite possible to im-
part useful ideas to direct and fortify the immigrant in his
first moments of perplexity end despondency. Young men,
especially, who have left their native country with very
brilliant expectations, and do not find their course so easy
here, need a few words of caution and encouragement.

Their case is not hopeless till they make it so ; and it is
necessary they should look soberly at the circumstances of
the novel position in which they find themselves.
Most young men emigrate without any clearly defined
purpose. Whatever their previous situation may have
been, they have a vague hope of bettering it here. Per-
haps just now the prevailing idea is, th .t they will go to
the diggings, with the further thought that, when they
have filled their pockets with gold, they will at leisure con-
sider what shall bo the course of their future life. Even
mechanics arc scarcely more definite in their purposes.
Gold digging apart, the younger men come only to take
the chance of occupations in which they hope for high
gains and a life not very toilsome. Situations of all sorts
they think may he had for asking, and kept at pleasure.
But these ideas are falsified soon atter arrival, and none but
the truly enterprising, the sell-sustained, and the unroman-
tic, find their course readily open before them. The dig-
gings do not reward everybody, and, indeed, they repay
very few beside the laborious and self-denying.
It requires no ordinary steadiness of purpose
and power of endurance to lead such a life. Fur its pecu-
liar necessities youth nurtured in comfort are not well
fitted. It is inevitable that the majority of them will re-
treat to seek employment more adapted to their habits, or
else will succumb to their vexation, and become disabled
and dispirited. To persons in such a perilous crisis our
sympathy and most earnest and friendly counsel is due.
The prevailing reliance on letters of introduction for a
first footing in colonial life has often proved the occasion of
bitter regret. It is an act of sincere friendship in Eng-
land to furnish such documents, but were we there we
would entirely discourage all confidence in their utility.
It rarely happens that they prove of practical advantage,
and they often become the instruments of annoyenne and
despondency. Persons engaged in business here en-
gage their employe4 n on the strength ot in-
introductory letters, nor even on certificates of character,
but on an intuitive perception of the qualities of industry,
energy, sobriety, and fidelity. Or, at least, it is such
qualities which alone will secure and perpetuate honour.
able employment. Whatever a letter or certificate was
worth when it was written, a three or four months' trial of
principles on board ship has superseded its value. The
young emigrant who has stood well that test will require
no letters of introduction to make his good qualities dis-
coverable ; and to him who has become dissipated they will
be practically useless; and nothing remains for the latter
but to recover his stability as soon as he can, making this
his prime object. But even if such documents have in no
respect been falsified, the circumstaaces of merchants and
other employers seldom permit attention to such things ;
while persons in official positions have all their patronage
bespoken long before.

Unless a young man come with tapital to begin busi-
nese for himself, which is not one of the cases we are con-
templating, the quantity of ready cash he may possess is
of little corsequence, indeed it were better to say, that in
many cues he that has little cash is the better off. Success
for a labourer of any cost, depends not upon his money,
but upon his enterprise, and steady conduct. The right
thing to do is, not to trust to cash at all, but to set seriously
to work on the first job, of whatever creditable description,
which offers itself. Men intending to be seriously busy
will find some occupation without delay. But then they
will not scruple because it may seem beneath them. If they
have been to Eton or to Oxford, and yet intend to be suc-
cessful here, they must be busy with the very first thing
they can get to do If they have superior abilities and educa-
tion, they will be discovered in due time, and will have
lost nothing by manual exertion. Ile who intends to get
on must work, and must not needlessly lose a moment
Shoe-cleaning or street-cleaning is better than waiting, for
a young man who is without other resources than personal
exertion. There is no shame upon in.lustry, but there is
shame upon inactivity. A young colonist should be pre-
pared to do whatever honest thing comes to his hand.
" The habit of strenuous, continued labour," says Isaac
Taylor, in reference to another matter, "must be impelled
by motives that are seen and felt to be irresistible.
'the very same task which cut the mind the most grievous
struggles between its inclination to desist and its wish to
proceed—if the motive be a little loose or questionable—
this task, not a whit abated, is performed with alacrity and
ease, when once it is looked at as in no way possible to be
evaded. The tense of absolute necessity is that which
makes all things easy—converting the impossible into the
practicable."

Two things are especially desirable in the case of young
immigrants. The first is a steady and unvarying attention
to personal elevation and moral respectability. Every
tempting haunt of pleasure, every debasing association,
should be carefully avoided. Dissipation is more ruinous
to the well-formed purpose than even to the reputation and
pocket. He who is frequently found at such places neither
is, nor can be thought to be, fit for a confidential place in
society. The very first act of intemperance opens the pos-
sibility to a dissipated habit, and betrays some liking
for the thing. Too much care cannot be exercised
after a voyage in which the necessities of the ship
have produced a disposition to relax the rigours of ab-
stinence. Crimps and seducers of all sorts must like-
wise be unflinchingly eschewed. The second thing
is, not to regard high remuneration as • condition of
prime importance in the early obtaining or the subsequent
keeping of emtiloyment. A greater folly can hardly exist
than the sacrihcing of industrious habits to temporary high
prices. To shift from place to place in prosperous times
merely in pursuit of incessant augmentatione, is the right
way to make employers indifferent about the interests of the
employed, and to lose all the advantage of character which
previous exertion may have procured. All bonds of union
and friendship are thus severed. Ile who selfishly abaci-
' dons his employment for a transient pecuniary gain can
never complain it he be sacrificed when employments are
-earce. A man's capital is contained in the usefulness and
orderliness of his habits, much more than in the direct pro-
Ws of ar.y year or atria of years of his life. The dexxling
fortunes made by a few in a short time are no proper ex-
ample of the experience of the multitude, nor do they set
aside the law of persevering labour and honesty as the way
to competency.
• • ' "• • •

- - .
To young men, and all others with the disposition we
have recommended, Australia is full of encouragement and
hope. Never was a finer field. There can be no :ear of
employment fur those who will depend on their own ex-
ertions, and not indolently rely on adventitious circum-
stances. Those who are determined to gain a looting will
assuredly do so, the contingencies of life apart. Bat a
prime requisite in the charter of SUMP% is self-denial, his
of the first consequence that itumcdiste money-making
, should not be made too much of.

TIIE LATE Ma. BILANSIIT COOPEIL—From the
post »surfeits examination of the body of this gentleman, it
appears that the immediate cause of death was a malignant
disease of the throat, involving a large brunch of the carotid
artery, which, becoming ulcerated, gave way, and produced
instantaneous death, by tilling the lungs with blood. The
funeral took place a.. early as halt•past eight o'clock yester-
day morning, when the remains of the lamented deceased r
were conceded, in pursuance of his %viola>, in a most un-
ostentatious manner, from his re,i.lence in Spring-gardens
to the church of St. Hartin-in-tlie-Fields, Lord Palmerston
having kindly permitted the family vault to be opened, in '
obedience to the wi-he. of the deceased, as expressed in his I
will, this church being one of those in which interments
are no longer allowed. The coffin was preceded by the
medical and surgical staff of Guy's hospital (of which in-
stitution Mr. Cooper was the senior surgeon) ; following
it came the immediate relations and friends of the deceased,
including all the sta...ta of the hospital now in town,