The Sun.
London, England, 1850-01-25 00:00:00

FEMALE EMIGRATION
(From the Chronicle.)
We elsewhere lay before our readers a document
which will be perused with earnest attention by all
who interest themselves in Mr. Sidney Herbert's
plan of Female Emigration. It is the Report of the
Sub-Committee appointed to consider " the most
advisable mode of ensuring to female emigrants a
proper reception on reaching the ports of their desti-
nation in our colonies." But it embraces various
other topics of primary importance, connected with
the management of this benevolent enterprise ; and,
as it has been received and adopted by the General
Committee, we may regard it as presenting an epi-
tomised summary of the principles on which the
undertaking is to be conducted.
The leading points of this report may be briefly
stated. First, as regards the proper selection of emi-
grants, it is proposed (inter alia) that candidates
should not exceed thirty-five years of age—that they
should be " entirely free from any mental or bodily
defect likely to impair their usefulness as settlers"—
and that " their characters for industry and morality
should be satisfactory." Next, it is recommended,
with a view to the effectual protection of the emi-
grants during their transit to the colonies, that they
should be sent out on board Government emigration
ships, in the event of the Colonial Land and Emi-
gration Commissioners being satisfied that the charac-
ter of the emigration is such as to entitle it to their
sanction ; otherwise,!that they should go out " in small
parties, on board free emigrant ships, with a view of
securing to them that protection which the presence of
married couples and families interested in the mainte-
nance of order and decency would, to a certain degree,
afford." And it is further suggested that, in the
latter case, " the emigrants should be placed, during
the passage, under the charge of matrons, to be
selected for the purpose, and that the utmost caution
should be used in ascertaining the characters of the
officers of the ships." With regard to the third head
—namely, the aid and protection to be ensured to the
emigrants on landing—we are" informed that, by an
arrangement with the Colonial Land and Emigration
Commissioners, they will, on reaching the colonies,
"be received by Government officers, who will be
instructed to give them all the assistance and
advice they may require, as to the rate of wages,
the places where employment may be most readily
obtained, and other similar points." In other
respects,• likewise, it will be seen that substantial
temporary aid will be afforded to the emigrants
during the interval that may elapse before they are
provided with employment. Under the fourth head
of the Report, which relates to the costs of outfit and
passage, some interesting particulars will be found,
which will still further show the solicitude of the
Committee, both to place the character of the emi-
gration beyond the reach of doubt or cavil, and to
improve to the uttermost the pecuniary means en-
trusted to their disposal.
The most cursory reader of this document cannot
fail to be deeply impressed with the painstaking
anxiety which the Committee evince, to exercise, in
all respects, a wise and prudent stewardship over the
funds confided to them, and to preserve this great and
noble work of benevolence free from any admixture of
evil or any risk of failure. Those who have the best
means of information as to the state of feeling in the
colonies are strongly of opinion, that it is all-essential
to the success of the undertaking to choose only
emigrants whose moral character and industrial
capabilities will bear the fullest scrutiny ; and
that, if there were any feature in the scheme calcu-
lated to awaken suspicion on the part of the colonial
public as to the characters of those sent out, the
leading aim of the plan would be most seriously
marred. B)th as regards the future welfare of the
emigrants themselves and the general interests of
emigration, it is matter of primary necessity to send
out (especially at first) none but those who will be
acceptable to the colonies, and whose moral and
industrial qualifications are such as to insure their
success. In a word, the principle on which the
Committee have proceeded is, that the unexception-
able quality of the intended emigration is a matter of
capital moment, not only with reference to the sen-
timents and feelings of• the colonies themselves, but
as regards likewise the permanent interest which the
mother country has in seeing colonial society con-
stituted on a sound moral and material basis.
The stress which the Committee lay on this and
similar topics in their Report ought completely to
remove any lingering scruples on the part of those
who have hitherto hesitated to support the under-
taking, through an apprehension that they might
be indirectly contributing to weaken the motives
to virtuous conduct, by assisting destitute persons
of equivocal repute. It is at all events impossible
to allege now, that a subscription to the Female
Emigration Fund can in any way have the effect of
impairing the prudential sanctions of virtue, by
placing some who have ;yielded to temptation in a
better position than others who have withstood it. It
is put beyond all doubt by this report that every shil-
ling of the fund will be expended in promoting the
welfare of the most meritorious class of the distressed
—in removing from the sphere of vicious and
degrading influences those who have not fallen
victims to them—and thus in practically teaching
the poor the inestimable value of a good character.
We earnestly commend this consideration to the
minds of those benevolent and conscientious persons
whose generous sympathies with the object of the en-
terprise may have been checked by ethical scruples.
The relief of destitution will, in this instance, ope-
rate as a direct encouragement to virtuous principles
and habits ; and the larger and more numerous the
emigration, the more conspicuous will be the moral
lesson.
On all our readers we would once more emphati-
cally urge the claims of this admirable charity.
Looking at the studious precautions adopted with
reference to the selection of recipients, their prepara-
tion for their new destination, and the aid and pro-
tection to be afforded them during their passage and
on their arrival; and looking at the social wants
of our colonies, and at the incalculable importance
of rendering them attractive outlets for our vast,
increasing, and adventurous population—we cannot
hesitate in saying, that never did a charitable under-
taking come before the British public with more
numerous and more powerful titles to energetic and
munificent support—never had the contributors to a
scheme of beneficence ampler reason for assuring
themselves that they are doing real, permanent, and
unalloyed good.

THE LATE EBENEZER ELLIOTT.
There is jilst,issueil (by C. Fox, Pekernoster-row).
the-first of two volumes, entitled " More Verse and
-Prose, "by the Corn-law Rhymer." -The following is
its preface :
" The Elgin marbles are representations of the
processions, and battlea (the everyday occemnences,
and common-place) of old Greece ; and the Elgin
marbles are poetry in tho highest.
"In Ragland, railway meetings and speeches are
everyday occurrences ; and the evil doings in railways
constitute a drama of horrors, compared with some of
the actors in which, Rush (the wretch who paid him-
self in blood for unexhausted improvements) was a
stainless angel! Has not that drama its poetry ?
Perhaps a hundred millions have been wasted in un-
wanted railways ! I did my best to prevent that
waste ; and though I cannot know that any of my
writings or sayings will live, I desire that my chil-
dren and theirs shall know (through them) that I did
my duty while others were supine.
" To be summoned on a jury is an everyday occur-
rence in England; but if I had never been summoned
on a jury, I should not have known that there is a
class of men in England, whose capital (worth at
least two thousand millions) may be said to be in a
state of outlawry, left, without any legal protection, to
the mercy of another class, who may appropriate, and
with perfect impunity proceed to devour it at any mo-
ment ; for the customary law, called custom of the
country,' established by tenants as their sole reliance,
is not binding on landlords. Say not that this state of
things has not its poetry !
" Bets, Bubbles, and Banking' are everyday mat-
ters in Ungland ; but such things have furnished the
means for carrying on, in my time, wars which have
cost the lives of ten millions of men ; in the infinite
horror of which, Trafaler and Waterloo were but
trifling though splendid incidents ! Now, to conse-
crate in the poetry of sculpture this tremendous com-
monplace, a Phidias only is wanted. In due time,
that Phidias will be found ; and then, our days of de-
gradation will have their Parthenon.
"In the meantime I claim to have been a pioneer
of the greatest, the most beneficial, the only crimeless
Revolution which man has yet seen. I 'also claim to
be the poet of that Revolution—the Bard of Free-
trade, and through the prosperity, wisdom, and lov-
ing-kindness which:Free-trade will ultimately bring,
the Bard of Universal Peace. I know not that my
claims will be conceded ; the world will lose nothing
if it be not conceded, nor will I complain, but neither
will I bate a jot of my right; for self-sacrifice in
concession to wrong has ever been the root of worst
humiliation—and tyrants come of slaves.
" It is remarkable that Free-trade has been carried
by the middle classes, not only without the assistance
of the working-classes, but in spite of their opposi-
tion. When I became a Free-trade agitator in 1824
I could not find one respectable shopkeeper who
thought the corn-laws an evil. The merchants, to
a man, thought them beneficial. Exactly in propor-
tion to the plunder-power exercised on his fortunes
by the aristocracy, did the would-be squire idolise his
destroyers ; and I had discussed the question ten years
in all ways—by speech and writing, in prose and
verse—before I made my first Sheffield convert of the
mercantile class, 'William Ibbotson, Esq., of Globe
Works. Did I not think I had done a feat ? Yes, I
felt it through my
heart's core. But then came
Feargus, and his blarney ; trades-unionism, fierce in
its imitative glory; and chartism, with its stone-blind
selfishness ; all fighting for the enemy ! Wisehead,
at last, was born of Empty-Pocket, in a respetable