histories that we knew concerning them of wretched disappointment and moral deterioration. The strong demand for single women has induced those individuals to whom the task has been entrusted of meeting it to regard the case too much from one point of view only, and decent girls being found unwilling to emigrate to a penal colony, the fact that it is one has sometimes been concealed from them until after they have sailed, whilst in the meantime they have generally received a description of its merits altogether fabulous.
The wages of women servants (charwomen excepted, who receive the disproportionately large sum of three shillings a day) are not higher than in England, and the work is much harder and rougher than at home on account of the hot summers and the absence of home conveniences. It is true that the trouble of blackleading and polishing grates and fire-irons is obviated by the custom of burning wood upon the open hearths, but of other compensations to a girl for the quitting of friends, home, and country, there are none to enumerate, and in all other respects the change is for the worse.
The female immigrants are disheartened, immediately after landing, by finding convicts for fellow-servants, and the additional discovery that the prospects of marriage offer nothing better than a selection from the same class, causes those girls who have friends already settled in Sydney or Melbourne, resolutely to save money in order that they may join them there. The larger trading vessels thus annually carry away a little stream of women from the colony, but they are the fortunate few—the greater number remain, and become convicts' wives, or perhaps
