1853, by order of the Governor of Van Diemen's Land, under the head of "Demand for Labour" almost all the trades are mentioned that suggest themselves to us here. There is said to be, from a combination of various causes, a most urgent necessity for working people of all kinds, both male and female. "The pressing occasion," says the writer of this publication, "for domestic servants of all kinds, both male and female, must be particularly adverted to. Large numbers of these persons would obtain immediate and very advantageous employment in every part of the colony. It is scarcely possible to express too strongly the great want which exists of servants of all kinds, both male and female."[1]
In the old and decayed parts of this city you will meet with numbers of tradespeople of the various kinds described in the Colonization Circular. It is, no doubt, true that many of what may be called the dregs of the population are to be found in such parts of our city, and of all cities; but it is as true that there are many there of a very different class, many who having struggled much to better their condition, and having failed, have sunk into a state of apathy, and have given themselves up to a silent endurance of their misery. The difficulty of such an effort in a large city has been a subject of common remark in all ages.
"Haud facile emergunt quorum virtutibus obstat
Res angusta domi; sed Romæ durior illis
Conatus."
I may take an example of this from the north side of our city. There is a street within a stone's throw of the Four Courts, where I could go to a hundred individuals such as those described in the Circular in an hour. In this street there are at least eight rooms in each house, and in a room there are from four to eight and often more persons living; from thirty to fifty beings in one house. There are other streets in the same neighbourhood with about the same number of inmates living in them, but with their houses in still worse repair. The very dwellings alone tend to crush energy, life and spirit. Health, vigour and cheerfulness must sooner or later be banished, and be followed by disease, listlessness and gloom. To the inhabitants of such places I at all events see the applicability of the words, "Past hope, past cure, past help." Here no class is more generally met with than the one to which the genius of the poet has called attention—the distressed needlewomen. Though benevolence has given them some help and more sympathy, yet at this moment as a class they are suffering indescribable misery. I am unable to give even a probable estimate of their number in our city,
- ↑ "The most urgent demand is for housemaids, cooks, nursery-maids, needlewomen, laundresses, and general servants. Large numbers of such women could at once find employment at high wages, and in situations at least as comfortable as those usually obtained in England."—Colonization Circular, 1855. To connect this state of things more immediately with the present time, it may be added that The Daily Express (August 15th, 1856), in the foreign intelligence mentions the following, among other classes of laborers, as commanding the annexed rates of wages:—"Thorough female servants (in great demand) £30 to £40; housemaids, £20 to £28, laundresses, £30 to £35; nursemaids, £15 to £20."
