The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1881-05-11
THE EMIGRANT.
A Graphic Description ofthe Horrors on
an Emigrant Ship.
A Hundred Men and Women, Innocent
Girls and Babes Sleeping tndis-
criminateIy in One Hammock.

IoSpoN. Nav Miss Charlotte G. O'Brien,
daughter of Smith O'Brien, of Young Ireland
fame, sends to the Pail Mall Gazette letter, en-
titled, Horrors of an Emigrant Ship" which
creates profound sensation, and will be the sub
ject of a question IN the Commons on Monday
by o'Donnell. Miss % Brien visited Queenstown
in order to examine the mode of life of emigrants
on a steamer which vessel, however, she
does not name. The following the
that wherever the sacred foot Uf wealth trod on
this ship all was gold and silver, shining brass,
cleanliness, comfSTt, decency- We had come on
board, however, to see emigrants, and we we were
saw the quarters of the single men, descriptions
of slave pens flashed across me. Below this ouI
take you down there; ii is much worse than you
see But my business was with the mems quar-
tiers and we went there. Between the two decks,
better lighted than the mems quarters,
side de of % the Ship 10 the other.
From either side of the long central walk to the
NOUS hammocks, one suspended about three feet
from the floor. What was going on in two other
hammocks above these could not see, but pre-
sEme they were the same as those below. ] sup
pose each of these hammocks carry about 100 per
sons. They were made of sail cloth, and being
suspended all around from hooks were perfectly
great bed into berths. These strips of cloth
when the mattresses were out formed divisions
about eight inches high. When the mattresses are
in il must be almost on level. Now in these
beds lie hundreds of men and women. Any man
VINO comes with woman who Is or calls herself
his wife sleeps matter OF right, IN the midst
of a hundred young women who are compelled
TO live in his presence day and night II they
remove their clothes they must do so under his
eyes. If they lie down to rest it must be beside
but to destroy such an evil il is necessary to look
at these abodes of misery. In daylight. and when
ODen for inspection they are empty; swept and
ness of the night, the ship pitching IN mid ocean;
when a glimmering lamp or two makes
visible to you this mass of moaning humanity.
Look at that young mother with two or three
helpless babies in agOnies OF sea sickness, unable
to move but over the PROSTATE bodies of her fel
lows sufferers. Look at this innocent girl child
lying among dissolute men and abandoned wo-
men, half stupefed with suffocatiOn and sea sick
ness, amid curses and groans of hundreds. Il
she arises and fees to save her soul, whittier shall
writhing bodies of men and women
But the picture is too horrible to be looked at
The sounds too dreadful to listen TO-. This is nc
horror menacing the lives, honor and souls O
hundreds and thousands of our fellow-country
women. The ship in which 1 saw those things
is supposed 10 carry in this manner loo steer
rye passengers She carried last year an average
,T75 emigTants.
BEATS THE TELEPHONE.
A Paris correspondent sends the following ac
count of the latest scientific sensation: "A re-
markably interesting experiment mas Just Deen
made at Calais and Dover, between which places
conversation has been kept up viva voce by
means of a new kind of telephone, which has
been patented under the name of electrophone.
Not only were words whispered into the appa-
ratus at Calais distinctly heard at Dover, and, OF
course vice versa but the listener at one end was
perfectly well able to distinguish by mere tones
of voice the person who was speaking
at the other end. 1t should be observed
that while human voice was being
transmitted through one of the wires, the
other wires were being employed for
the transmission of order telegraphic messages.
Moreover. the experiments were conducted be-
tween the hours of 10 and A. that is In the busiest
part Of she day, when the wires are in unceasing
requisition. The voice of the speaker was dis
tinetly heard soon as the wires were joined TO
the apparatus, and conversations were carried on
without interruption in the presence of compe-
tent specialists. Experiments with the same ap-
paratus have been continued with the same re-
suits and in the midst of confusion produced by
the simultaneous working OF several machines.
At the London terminal station the voice of the
speaker was heard as plainly as though he had
beeE in the same same room. There can no longer
be any doubt that it is perfectly practicable 10
converse across, or rather under the sea by means
of any submarine cable. The inventor main
tains that ii is just easy to talk across the At
lantic as from one room to another"