J
John Sankey
Guest
"Just thought that you might try being real for a change."
A dose of being real, from my family history:
" came from England to Canada in the latter end of August 1819
with a Wife, and now that we have one Son, your Memorialist
having a brother living at Ymaskaw Mountain to which your
Memorialist came...."
What memories must have been summed up in those few words, "came
from England to Canada"! Ports on both sides of the Atlantic
swarmed with con-men selling non-existent berths, accommodation
and money exchange. Generally the worst vessels were used for the
emigrant trade to Canada - the usual steerage hold was 1.7 m
high; on either side of a 1.5 m aisle were bunks 3 m wide and 1.5
m long, each for 6 adults. Infants under a year were not counted,
children 1-6 counted only as 1/3 a person, those aged 7-13 as 1/2
a person, for space, food and water. In fact slaves being
deported from Africa to America usually had better quarters.
Slaves were paid for on delivery; the healthier they were, the
higher the shipmaster's profit. Emigrants had to pay in advance;
dead or alive they had no redress on arrival.
The only ventilation was through the hatches, which were closed
in bad weather, often for a week at a time. During a storm, those
unused to the sea, sealed up in total darkness, were frightened
out of their wits by what, to the uninitiated, sounded like their
ship was breaking apart. They would be thrown from their berths
and hurled headlong among their companions who lay on the
opposite side, together with all their food and belongings. Water
usually leaked through the deck in such quantities that beds were
soaked and the floor could be ankle deep in water. The bread for
steerage passengers on the Rothiemurchus in 1817 was over a year
old and the beef much older, while the drinking water was "no
clearer than that of a dirty kennel after a rain ... the stink it
emitted was intolerable". The damp below decks rotted most fresh
food within a week. The average Liverpool-Quebec City trip took
six weeks, but adverse weather could double that time. Those who
had the foresight, as our Pennine ancestors did, to fill their
bunks with oatmeal - which keeps for months and has sufficient
nutrients to be a healthy diet for weeks on end - had to listen
and watch as those who packed only fresh produce sickened and
died about them. Small wonder that the historian Guillet refers
to it as "a time of horror which could never be effaced from
memory". (I celebrated Y2K with oatmeal, in a bowl that belonged
to my great grandparents, to honour their memory.)
A dose of being real, from my family history:
" came from England to Canada in the latter end of August 1819
with a Wife, and now that we have one Son, your Memorialist
having a brother living at Ymaskaw Mountain to which your
Memorialist came...."
What memories must have been summed up in those few words, "came
from England to Canada"! Ports on both sides of the Atlantic
swarmed with con-men selling non-existent berths, accommodation
and money exchange. Generally the worst vessels were used for the
emigrant trade to Canada - the usual steerage hold was 1.7 m
high; on either side of a 1.5 m aisle were bunks 3 m wide and 1.5
m long, each for 6 adults. Infants under a year were not counted,
children 1-6 counted only as 1/3 a person, those aged 7-13 as 1/2
a person, for space, food and water. In fact slaves being
deported from Africa to America usually had better quarters.
Slaves were paid for on delivery; the healthier they were, the
higher the shipmaster's profit. Emigrants had to pay in advance;
dead or alive they had no redress on arrival.
The only ventilation was through the hatches, which were closed
in bad weather, often for a week at a time. During a storm, those
unused to the sea, sealed up in total darkness, were frightened
out of their wits by what, to the uninitiated, sounded like their
ship was breaking apart. They would be thrown from their berths
and hurled headlong among their companions who lay on the
opposite side, together with all their food and belongings. Water
usually leaked through the deck in such quantities that beds were
soaked and the floor could be ankle deep in water. The bread for
steerage passengers on the Rothiemurchus in 1817 was over a year
old and the beef much older, while the drinking water was "no
clearer than that of a dirty kennel after a rain ... the stink it
emitted was intolerable". The damp below decks rotted most fresh
food within a week. The average Liverpool-Quebec City trip took
six weeks, but adverse weather could double that time. Those who
had the foresight, as our Pennine ancestors did, to fill their
bunks with oatmeal - which keeps for months and has sufficient
nutrients to be a healthy diet for weeks on end - had to listen
and watch as those who packed only fresh produce sickened and
died about them. Small wonder that the historian Guillet refers
to it as "a time of horror which could never be effaced from
memory". (I celebrated Y2K with oatmeal, in a bowl that belonged
to my great grandparents, to honour their memory.)
