News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1898-12-28

steerage people; they slept and lived |
in quarters under the cuddy, bulkhead- |
ed off from the tween decks, and they |
passed out through hatch in the cud- |
dy, but were not permitted to use the |
poop. Then the tween decks lot all |
under the main hatch, far aft, as the
forecastle bulkhead was their living
room. Rough cabins had been knocked |
up for the married couples; the single |
women slept abaft, partitioned off; the
men lay in Shelves side by side in
tours, convict fashion, with batten
between the sleepers to stop them from
growing mixed in their dreams.
1.-THE first class passengers were well
enough, and the steerage people for the
most part respectable, but never had l
been shipmate before with wilder,
hairier, grimier lot than the people who
lodged in the tween decks. They had
q kitchen to themselves; it was built
just before the ships galley. There
you'd see them crowding about the
doors at mealtimes Furnishing their
hook pots, yelling to be served, wrestling
and fighting like drunken mob up an
alley. can't say that particularly no
ticed the people at the first going off
An Irishman took my sight by his ugli
ness. His squint twisted his pupils into
his nose and his scowl was like a curse
flung at everything he turned his scoun-
drel face upon.
ga couple of foreigners 1 recollect
looking at on one or two occasions dur
ing this early time. They were Italians,
| fancied, man and woman, steerage
passengers and when they got over
their seasickness they'd come on deck
and lodge themselves in one place close
together, just under the break of the
poop. The man was rather good look,
ing fellow of the pastry cook or Italian
organ grinder type, yellow as leather,
with pair of dead black, but flaming
eyes, and huge mustache, which he
had SO pulled out without spiking that
it stood athwart like capstan bar un-
der his nose. His companion was pale
young woman of four or five and TWEEN
ty not i'll looking, though never met
a woman's face that pleased me south
of 80 degrees. Isupposed them husband
and wife.
"We met with some dirty weather i'll
the channel which cleared our decks Of
the people. There was much heaving
and yah-hoing below and small comfort
and nothing to eat if it was fetched,
and scarcely dogs food at that, but in
those days the emigrant whether bound
to America or to Australia, was the
most i'll used, cheated, starved and be.
trayed poor devil that ever stood or
tried to stand up on two legs. The con
vict was handsomely used in compari
son. The honest laborers, fragrant with
hayseed; the red checked young woman,
still sweet with the scent of the udder
the respectable, gray haired but broken
father, call him an unfortunate solicitor
with wife and four tall children
these people, the like of them, in scores
were tumbled into floating pit lighted
by lamp which filled the place with Il
stencil of burning fat. They were fed on
beef the boys could have chiseled into
tops on pork whose smell when boiled
has served in the tropics to keep a ship
clear of sharks, battened down in foul
weather till one after another would
swoon with the atmosphere of their oN II
creation, with nothing to remember but
rags and famine at home and with moth.
ing to look forward to but four or five
stormy months of squalor and bread
worms.
"We struggled down channel against
hard head wind, and all went we'll
till we changed the weather into high
hot sun and the green ridges of the bay
into a long heave of summer swell
wrinkled by light breeze out of north
east. Everything fore and aft had shak
en- down into its place by this time. 1t
was morning in October. I went on
deck after breakfast, and, though this
was not my first command by several, |
was brought to stand with sudden
sense of the weight of my trust when,
after stepping out of the companionway
sent look forward and around.
''The poop was full every cuddy pas
senger was on deck. The awning WAS
spread; ladies reclined in easy chairs III
the shadow. | went forward as far T.,
the rail at the break of the poop and
found the decks from the cabin front
under me TO the forecastle head litter d
with groups of the steerage and tween
deck people. That old ship you just now
saw towing by made a noble show as
she sat upright on the blue brine, cloth
ed to her royal mastheads. The water
alongside was white with the light Of
the overhanging studding sails. The
canvas breathed like the breasts of a
woman as they sank in and filled with
the light breeze, and from under the
bows on either hand lines of light like
wires Of gold stole aft, meeting in a
furrow under the counter for the full
splendor of the sun to dazzle in till the
beautiful ship looked as she slowly roll
ed forward as though she towed sheet
Of flame astern of her. There was moth
ing in sight. Our three spires rose soli-
tary into the splendor amid the silence
OF that wide space of flashing sea.
, IL stood at the head of the starboard
poop ladder, where 1 could command a
: view Of the emigrants The mate, a
fine seaman, named Lever, paced the
deck near mo- on the lookout. called