Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456, page 9 by Various Authors
<< Return to Title Details & Download10
and children to parents. In the course of her answer, she said: "It is my intention, if supported by your co-operation, to attempt more than I have hitherto performed." She left Australia in 1846, bearing with her the warm prayers of the working colonists, whose confidence and gratitude, both bond and free, she had thoroughly secured, charged with the self-imposed mission of representing in England the claims of those powerless classes who have neither honour nor pensions to bestow on their advocates.'
Since 1846, Mrs Chisholm has resided near London, and devoted herself to the promotion of her last great scheme. This is to send emigrants to Australia, in what are called Family Groups, under the auspices of the Family Colonisation Loan Society. The main features of the plan are these: suitable and well-recommended persons are enrolled as members on paying a small fee; and they are sent out on paying two-thirds of the passage-money--the remaining third being paid as a loan by the society, which loan is to be repaid from wages received in the colony. No security is required for the loan. The society reckon on the integrity and gratitude of the emigrants, and on the principle of associating parties into groups, the members of which exercise a mutual supervision. A group consists of twelve adults. Friendless young women are introduced to and grouped with families. These introductions usually take place at Mrs Chisholm's residence once every week, when the groups are addressed in a friendly manner, and furnished with hints for their government on board ship.
Another important feature in these operations, is to help poor emigrants to remit small sums to friends at home, the difficulty of making such remittances having formerly been very considerable. To organise a proper system of remitting, Captain Chisholm has returned to Australia, and, according to an account given by Mrs Chisholm in a letter to the Times, it appears that the system is realising all reasonable expectation. We copy the