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    74 MIDDLE-CLASS FEMALE EMIGRATION

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    _ V Some Years Ago The Fishermen Of A Sm...

    _Tbours and friends . People talk of the " right man in the right place" and the right woman in the right place is quite as

    impor-, tant . -The colonists imagine that their mother-country does not think

    _enotigh of this . They sometimes fancy that England looks upon her colonies as pieces of waste land upon which rubbish may be

    shot acl libitum . It must be owned that much that is useless , to her is very valuable to them . But they have protestedand they

    still protest , that anything will not do . They want qualit , y as well as quantity . When we were young as colonies we were content

    with the _left-off garments of our parents ; but now we think ourselves old enough and important enough to have our tastes and

    habits consulted , and our clothes made to fit . We are of different ages and different capacities , and if our good mother will kindly

    remember this and take the trouble to examine into , our different requirementsand suit her gifts to our wantsinstead of rebelling

    against them , we shall accept them gratefull , y and turn them to good account . I proposethento offer a few suggestions on

    the part of my own and her sister , colonies , as to our needs . We want self-reliant , useful women . Those who will quickly

    find out their work and learn to do it . Those who can adapt themselves easily to any circumstances in which they may be placed .

    tru But ly we says want the at Na the tional same Revieiv time refined of all qualities and educated which women education , for

    surely and universally confers , , that of adaptability is the most remarkable . " And that of adaptability is to us , next to the

    Christian virtues , the most valuable . So much has been said and written about the roughness of the

    colonies and colonists , that I believe it has taken quite an exaggerated form in the English mind . A rough life it is in the *

    country , and a rough life tends to make the manners rough , and living among inferiors may cause people to forget some of the

    littlecourtesies of society and neglect the duty of self-control , but there are as true gentlemen and ladies , in the right sense of the words ,

    to be found in the far-away bush of Australia , in the wilds of Africaor in the backwoods of Canadaas in any London ball-room .

    Those , who are rough do not wish to continue , so . They look back with regret to their old life and long for a better and a higher state

    of existence . They are apt to set almost an undue value upon real refinement and the softening influence of those arts which give the

    charm to society . Thus accomplishments take rather too high a lace in colonial estimation . Music is especially belovedcultivated

    under p the greatest difficulties , and proficiency in it , thoroughly appreciated . It must be confessed that there are many houses too

    small and too uncomfortable to contain a piano , and'many households too busy and too rough to allow of the relaxation of music .

    an I have instrument known ladies for ten who or have twelve not years had , " but opportunity when the opportunity of touching

    74 Middle-Class Female Emigration

    74 MIDDLE-CLASS FEMALE _EMIGRATION

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Oct. 1, 1862, page 74, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01101862/page/2/