State Library of NSW
[Page 579]
to break up the community. The way in which these poor people were brought here is a matter which ought to receive serious attention on the part of their home authorities. Some rascally shipping agency of Marseilles advertised for Emigrants to South America. They soon got together two ship-loads, principally Italians & Tyrolese who were eventually landed & turned adrift somewhere down the Coast of Guatemala or Honduras where they were by no means welcome. And where they died like rotten sheep, hundreds of them in the course of a few months. A few stragglers came up here, and the Government proceeding upon very curious principles of political economy has not only made them free grants of land, but is feeding them, building houses for them and in various ways helping them out of its own pocket. The Experiment is worth trying for should it succeed I fancy we should get immigrants in large communities from the Italian popula[tion]
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