James Greenwood

“ This is one of the chief secrets of the emigrant's doing in a strange land - one of the most valuable results of the emigration scheme. It is not so much the transplanting a human creature from a country where the only bread that can be spared for him is workhouse bread, to another country where butcher's meat may be bought at threepence a pound, and a wholesome, home-baked peck loaf is always assured him;-it is the lifting him out of the Slough of Despond, and planting his feet on ground whereon he may stand firm, and stand till the end of his days, if he will only try and steady himself. ”

“ Bill, her motherly mind dwelling on the marvellous difference that meat every day at dinner, with milk plentiful as water, and flour dirt cheap, will be sure to make in her pale little brood of three boys and two girls, echoes her husband's sentiments right bravely. ”

“ Its main principle is to assist to the healthy and remunerative labour fields of Canada, not those deplorably poverty-stricken ones who can no more exist without "help" in a new country than here, but those - and they may be counted by thousands in London - who, given a "wheel," will put their shoulder to it might and main, and never cease their endeavour till they have fairly lifted it out of the nick. They don't require much help; the worst of it is such a host of them require it. They come begging and praying to those who have the emigration scheme on hand ”

“ It is something to have accomplished the tremendous undertaking so far, to say nothing of the comfort of companionship with a great many other people who are bound on the same journey; and it is no wonder if intending emigrants arrived at this stage show themselves cheerful enough to laugh and chat amongst themselves, and gather on the deck and wave their caps, and give out a lively hurrah as the ship steams out of harbour ”

“ To the unconcerned, the breaking up of a man's home is a very unpoetic performance. The broker lets fall no tear of sympathy as he surveys the shabby lot. He has nothing but a grunt of contempt for the cracked and odd china set, sacred to wedding days, christenings, and the like. ”

“ He tears a rent in the treasured feather-bed, and plunges in his dirty fist to test the quality of the feathers, and is not a whit more favourably impressed with it when he is pridefully informed how many years it has been in the family. He has so little reverence for the mahogany tea-caddy that was poor mother's that he actually scrawls with a bit of chalk on the well-rubbed lid of it his meagre estimate of the worth of each item, and what the total is. It is nothing to him. He is used to the rooting up of homes, and thinks no more of the job than he would of rooting up parsnips. ”

“ It is imperative that they raise all the money they can towards assisting themselves, and to this end the home must be "broken up." The teeth of poverty have so long been nibbling at the said home that probably there is not very much left of it ”

“ On another occasion I chanced to be down in Cambridgeshire when a batch of labourers belonging to a village there were on the threshold of being "off for Queensland." It had been resolved that there should be a turn out of the whole population, men and women, to accompany the bold adventurers to the railway station, and give them a hearty cheer by way of God-speed. I had never beheld anything like this. I had seen emigrants in plenty aboard ship in the docks, who were ready enough, nay, even eager to start on their voyage ”

“ This is the grand object, and how seldom it fails of achievement let the thousands of letters from emigrants writing "home" attest The emigrant, provided always he is of the right sort, as soon as he lands in Canada feels like a man to whom a new lease of life has been granted. ”

“ It was not entirely restored when the delegate had spoken his speech, and wound up by hinting that, as it wanted but half an hour to the time when the London train might be expected they had, perhaps, better be moving. "Ay, ay! let's be moving!" everybody said, and proceeded to do so with such unanimous alacrity that it was clearly the one idea that anything was better than standing still and thinking of what was just about to happen. ”

“ There was no lack of hands to carry the emigrants' luggage, or the emigrants' baby-in-arms, or even the two and three-year-olders who did not want carrying, and would rather have walked, but who nevertheless were shouldered by neighbours who had no other way at the moment of showing their kind regard for those they were on the point of losing. And so they went trooping up the street, the married couples arm-in-arm in front, with their friends about them, and the shouting, hooraying crowd bringing up the rear. ”

“ It is all very well to be fortified by facts that have gone before and by argument that is sound and undeniable, but you will seldom or never succeed in persuading an Englishman when "good-bye" time comes that he should be downright glad to quit the old country. ”

“ The women seated on the bundle were hardly as enthusiastic as their husbands. Of course, it was convenient to hold the meeting just by the church, for there everybody could. see the time by the clock, and know to a minute when they ought to start to meet the train. The only drawback to this advantage was that the churchyard surrounded the church, and it might have been confidently wagered that of the three married couples and the single young fellows there was not one who had not kith and kin lying there, and to whom "Good-bye" must presently be said as to the rest. ”

“ There were tall men, who would have been big men had they not been half-starved, and who evidently had it in their minds to take it out of Canada as regarded that prime beef at two shillings a stone as soon as ever they found opportunity ”

“ Now the cable is fairly slipped and they are launched, man and wife and children are drawn more closely together, and feel more than ever they did before how much depends on individual endeavour and a stanch resolution to stave off a faint heart. ”

“ So the battle is half won before the new land is invaded, and in every case, by this simple plan' of helping some poor willing fellow to help himself, a little more elbowroom is provided for the stay-at-homes of our own over-crowded labour market. ”