married son and his wife, and THEIR family of children. Orson
Jobson is a little child asleep in his mother’s arms. The Doctor,
with a kind word or so, lifts up the corner of the mother’s shawl,
looks at the child’s face, and touches the little clenched hand.
If we were all as well as Orson Jobson, doctoring would be a poor
profession.
INSPECTOR. Quite right, Jessie Jobson. Take your ticket, Jessie,
and pass on.
And away they go. Mormon agent, skilful and quiet, hands them on.
Mormon agent, skilful and quiet, hands next party up.
INSPECTOR (reading ticket again). Susannah Cleverly and William
Cleverly. Brother and sister, eh?
SISTER (young woman of business, hustling slow brother). Yes, sir.
INSPECTOR. Very good, Susannah Cleverly. Take your ticket,
Susannah, and take care of it.
And away they go.
INSPECTOR (taking ticket again). Sampson Dibble and Dorothy Dibble
(surveying a very old couple over his spectacles, with some
surprise). Your husband quite blind, Mrs. Dibble?
MRS. DIBBLE. Yes, sir, he be stone-blind.
MR. DIBBLE (addressing the mast). Yes, sir, I be stone-blind.
INSPECTOR. That’s a bad job. Take your ticket, Mrs. Dibble, and
don’t lose it, and pass on.
Doctor taps Mr. Dibble on the eyebrow with his forefinger, and away
they go.
INSPECTOR (taking ticket again). Anastatia Weedle.
ANASTATIA (a pretty girl, in a bright Garibaldi, this morning
elected by universal suffrage the Beauty of the Ship). That is me,
sir.
INSPECTOR. Going alone, Anastatia?
ANASTATIA (shaking her curls). I am with Mrs. Jobson, sir, but
I’ve got separated for the moment.
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Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller
INSPECTOR. Oh! You are with the Jobsons? Quite right. That’ll
do, Miss Weedle. Don’t lose your ticket.
Away she goes, and joins the Jobsons who are waiting for her, and
stoops and kisses Brigham Jobson – who appears to be considered too
young for the purpose, by several Mormons rising twenty, who are
looking on. Before her extensive skirts have departed from the
casks, a decent widow stands there with four children, and so the
roll goes.
The faces of some of the Welsh people, among whom there were many
old persons, were certainly the least intelligent. Some of these
emigrants would have bungled sorely, but for the directing hand
that was always ready. The intelligence here was unquestionably of
a low order, and the heads were of a poor type. Generally the case
was the reverse. There were many worn faces bearing traces of
patient poverty and hard work, and there was great steadiness of
purpose and much undemonstrative self-respect among this class. A
few young men were going singly. Several girls were going, two or
three together. These latter I found it very difficult to refer
back, in my mind, to their relinquished homes and pursuits.
Perhaps they were more like country milliners, and pupil teachers
rather tawdrily dressed, than any other classes of young women. I
noticed, among many little ornaments worn, more than one
photograph-brooch of the Princess of Wales, and also of the late
Prince Consort. Some single women of from thirty to forty, whom
one might suppose to be embroiderers, or straw-bonnet-makers, were
obviously going out in quest of husbands, as finer ladies go to
India. That they had any distinct notions of a plurality of
husbands or wives, I do not believe. To suppose the family groups
of whom the majority of emigrants were composed, polygamically
possessed, would be to suppose an absurdity, manifest to any one
who saw the fathers and mothers.
I should say (I had no means of ascertaining the fact) that most
familiar kinds of handicraft trades were represented here. Farmlabourers,
shepherds, and the like, had their full share of
representation, but I doubt if they preponderated. It was
interesting to see how the leading spirit in the family circle
never failed to show itself, even in the simple process of
answering to the names as they were called, and checking off the
owners of the names. Sometimes it was the father, much oftener the
mother, sometimes a quick little girl second or third in order of
seniority. It seemed to occur for the first time to some heavy
fathers, what large families they had; and their eyes rolled about,