passengers. Thus, for instance, the destruction of life by ship wrecks has been most appalling among the emigrants who have been enticed on board the worn-out vessels engaged in the Canadian timber trade; seventeen being shipwrecked in a single season in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and more than seven hundred lives lost.
Looking at the fine and commodious ships used in our day for the forwarding of emigrants, it is hardly possible to form a correct idea of the bad construction and awkward proportions of an old merchantman carrying passengers.
Sea voyaging 100 years agoA hundred, and even fifty, years ago, a sea voyage was an enterprise requiring more than ordinary courage. A person crossing the Atlantic, regularly made his last will and provided for his family. A passenger who safely returned was the wonder of his town; and when he came back from America, his neighbors called him the "American." The inland people had no idea of a sea-going vessel; in their eyes a sea voyage was synonymous with severe sickness, terrible suffering, and hardship. In descriptions of voyages, published as late as 1822, and containing engravings of the ships in which the authors crossed usually on small brigs or barks of a couple of hundred tons all the petty occurrences of the day are narrated in the journal of the traveller with minute details; the most insignificant items of the voyage are treated as matters of great concern, and the everyday work of the sailors commands the admiration and respect of the passengers.
Insufficient accommodation on emigrant ships, and resulting mortalityIn fact, the first cabin of a London packet a hundred years ago was not a whit more airy or comfortable than the steerage of a large steamer of our days. The lower deck of an emigrant vessel, as late as 1819, was no better than that of a slaver or a coolie ship; the passengers were just as crowded, and just as little thought of, as those unfortunate beings from Africa or China. Five or six feet was an extraordinary height for a steerage deck; the common height was from four to five feet, and the lower or orlop deck, which was also used for the so-called accommodation of passengers, was not much better than a blackhole, too bad to shelter cattle. The natural consequence was a large mortality. Ten deaths among one hundred passengers was nothing extra-