Carroll free press. [volume] (Carrollton [Ohio]) 1834-1861, 1853-03-25
con IInntInp in AnsirnIIa.

A letter dated Melbourne. Nov f2, publish.
ed in Dickens Household Words, gives the fol-
lowing glowing picture Of the condition Of the
newly arrived emigrants on their fret landing
IN Australia. The suffering depicted IN this
account is incidental to The larve immigration,
and 70 the unsettled condition Of the country
"Comfort is unknown here-that is. IN the
town although house and garden in the
bush is very different thing. AZ present all
the varieties Of the English climate, and in far
greater severity especially with regard TO
floods Of rain, and dense clouds Of hot, blind
ing dust-rage in the golden land There are
thousands OF persons, many Of them women
and children, daily landing at the wharf, who
cannot either for love or money get places
wherein to lay their heads.
Imagine a gloomy day (of which there are
many at the present season), The rain descend.
ing in torrents, and the unpaved streets mo.
rass the river steamers running up and down
the Yarra between the town and Hobson's Bay
(wherc the shipping are anehoredl, all day
long, to convey at each trip hundreds Of new
ly arrived emigrants. The passengers are land
ed, bag and baggage, on the wharf among hun
dreds Of their fellow sufferers, and are left
ruthlessly to their fate. The men of the dif,
ferent parties disperse about the town in quest
OF lodgings the women seat themselves upon
their piled up baggage, gathering their wonder
ing children around them, and await the hus-
bands or brothers. return with hope and con-
fdence Husbands, fathers and brothers do
return, but after long absence, with wearied
feet, flushed faces, and sinking hearts. They
have made tour of the town, and there is no
lodging to be had-they are absolutely house
less. Besides this, every article of consump-
tion is enormously dear-store room for lug
gage (if found at all), is ruinous Again men
start wildly on the same errand, and again re.
turn unsuccessful l have seen tears rolling
down more than one manly fellows face, as he
has stood contemplating his wife and children
reduced to such hard necessities and it is
painful to witness the stunned look Of despair
or the agony of grief and tears with which the
English women receive the cruel intelligence,
and clasp With streaming eyes their homeless
little ones to their hearts.
The feverish hustle and excitement at the
wharf are increased by a novel kind Of sale or
market, which is necessarily being held, and
which, in itself, is almost a disagreeable and
ominous sign Of the tines The wares thus
sold in the open air consist of the household
furniture, the little lots of goods brought out
as speculations, or often the personal kit only
of many of these people, who, unable to find
storage for their things, except at a rent which
would in a few days or weeks swallow up their
whole intrinsic value, are compelled to sacri-
fee their property for anything thatit will fetch.
In short there is disagreeable effect about
this first landing "a kind of damper thrown up
on the hopes and prospects-a change in the
bright ideas originally formed-a demolition of
the visionary castles built since leaving Europe,
which (or am much mistaken in the express
sion of the human countenance) very few fail
to feel on touching the shore"