From Job to Job around the World

by Alfred C. B. Fletcher

"About sixty pounds."

The officer conducted me into an adjoining cabin and there I had to dig into my pockets, pull out my money (which I had converted into English coin in Stockholm) and prove to his satisfaction that I had some real wealth in my possession.

"I think this thing has gone about far enough," I said. "I am not a pauper and am well able to take care of myself. There is no need to suspect that I will become a public charge. This sixty pounds is as much as any one of you makes in a whole year. I realise that you are simply carrying out the immigration regulations and doing your duty, but why can't you exercise a little discretion and let a man, who is well able to take care of himself, go on his way without all this nonsense?" This complaint of mine seemed to bring the Britisher to his senses and with a few remarks in conclusion I was allowed to land; not, however, until I had promised to go directly across to Liverpool and take the first steamer for America.

In five minutes I was going towards London at sixty miles an hour. The first boat from Liverpool to Quebec did not leave for a couple of days, and I decided to spend this time in the metropolis in spite of the instructions of the immigration officials.

Nearly three years of travel had reduced my wardrobe to a shabby lot of garments, and I was afraid of being arrested for vagrancy. I wandered into a men's furnishing store on Holborn Street and purchased a complete new outfit, including a Scotch tweed suit and two English caps. I was now equipped to travel to California with my father properly dressed.

That evening I put on all my new clothes, hopped into a taxicab and was off to make a call. I alighted at Fulham Palace and presented to the servant at the door a card of introduction to the Bishop of London, which I had received from the chaplain of the British legation in Peking. In a minute the servant informed me that Bishop Ingram was absent from the city and was not expected for two weeks. I was sorry. I wished to end up by interviewing a Lord Bishop.

I cabled my father in California that I would meet him in Toronto on August 17th, and left from Paddington station for Liverpool. I bought a through ticket from London to Liverpool by rail, thence to Quebec by steamer and finally to Toronto on a colonial train—all for six pounds.

At Liverpool I boarded the Tunisian of the Allan line and in a few minutes was lost in the hold of the ship among the two thousand English and Irish emigrants. My three cabin-mates were East End cockneys and they might as well have been Comanche Indians—for I was unable to understand their peculiar twang for a couple of days. The food was a substantial sort of stuff but was served as though the eaters were animals. And, as a matter of fact, the eaters were quite capable of playing the rôle of any trough-fed beast. "Pass the bloody jam" and "shoot the bleeding bread" were the customary phrases employed in asking for food. Profane and obscene expressions, which are not fit for print, although considered proper for the ears of the women of the steerage, were used at the table as so many platitudes. Seamstresses, Irish mill hands, English servants, cobblers, mechanics, barbers and an endless assortment of skilled and unskilled labourers of Great Britain were on their way to Canada to begin life over again.

After the first two days of sea-sickness were over, the fun on board ship began. Restraint and feminine modesty were cast to the winds, and the man who wasn't good enough to get a lover wasn't worth taking along. The women "fell" for anybody. "Down the bloody hatches" and on the "bleeding deck" and in every nook and corner were lovers. It was probably the most brazen exhibition of spooning I ever saw. It was a case of wrestle and osculate from morning until night regardless of how many curious and amused spectators were in the audience. The jesting and jeering of the onlookers seemed to act only as an incentive to the love-sick sea-farers, who were bent on having a big fling now that they were free from the restraint of home surroundings.

I spent most of the time as a spectator, frequently engaging in conversation with my fellow passengers to learn their ideas of this world and the next. I occasionally dropped into the first-class kitchen and made a friend of the chief cook, a good man to know when travelling steerage and living on its dessertless menu. I soon was the daily recipient of hand-outs and I very gratefully devoured the samples of cake, pudding and tarts which were prepared for the first-class passengers of the ship.