These criticisms whilst being general in nature were probably a bit harsh in the case of the "JAVA" as she could hardly have been as rotten as she is alleged to have been, as she still managed to be afloat in Gibraltar in 1939! However the next point of comment by the journalist from the "Weekly Dispatch" had much more significance for the passengers of the "JAVA".

"The provisions doled out to the emigrants are too often of the most inferior quality; but if the ship is once at sea complaints are useless--it is Hobson's choice--that or none. A few weeks since there was a disturbance on board one of the emigrant ships bound to New Zealand, off Gravesend. The beef was so bad that the passengers declared that they could not eat it, and made their dinners off bread and butter" [and this before they had left the shores of England!], "the captain was appealed to and he said he could not remedy the evil; the deluded emigrants threatened an appeal to the Mayor and Police of Gravesend, on which the commander immediately got the ship under weigh and set sail."

The very next criticism was also sadly true of many ships, although not necessarily so with the "JAVA', for the unnamed journalist went on to say: "The emigrant ships are often overcrowded and proper ventilation is not secured below: the consequence of this is that on reaching certain latitudes fever breaks out, and the mortality, particularly among the children is dreadful." That article concluded with a plea to the Government, who the paper said, "were extremely culpable in allowing things to go on in their present state".

The final quote is included for its pithiness:

"Our modern statesmen can legislate touching the enormity of a dustman ringing his bell in the street, and the appalling wickedness of a man slaking his thirst after twelve o'clock on Saturday night; but where there is wholesale traffic in human life, as there is with those connected with emigration ships, they are quite silent on the subject".

What were the conditions like for those unfortunate enough to be travelling in steerage? Basil Lubbock, a maritime historian of some note quoted an extract from a Parliamentary Report of 1844 in his 1924 work,” The Colonial Clippers" (Glasgow, James Brown and Son) which I will use as a guide to what the situation was like:

"It was scarcely possible to induce the passengers to sweep the decks after their meals or to be decent in respect to the common wants of nature; in many cases, in bad weather, they would not go on deck, their health suffered so much that their strength was gone, and they had not the power to help themselves. Hence the between decks were like a loathsome dungeon. When hatchways were opened, under which the people were stowed, the steam rose and the stench was like that from a pen of pigs. The few beds that they had were in a dreadful state, for the straw, once wet with sea water, soon rotted, besides which they used the between decks for all sorts of filthy purposes. Whenever vessels put back from distress, all these miseries and sufferings were exhibited in the most aggravated form. In one case it appeared that, the vessel having experienced rough weather, the people were unable to go on deck and cook their provisions: the strongest maintained the upper hand over the weakest: and it was even said that there were women who died of starvation. At that time the passengers were expected to cook for themselves and from their being unable to do this the greatest suffering arose. It was naturally at the commencement of the voyage that this system produced its worst effects, for the first days were those in which the people suffered most from sea-sickness and under the prostration of body thereby induced were wholly incapacitated from cooking. Thus though provisions might be abundant enough, the passengers would be half starved."

A later author, Don Charlwood in his " The Long Farewell - Settlers under Sail" (Melbourne, Allen Lane, 1981, p I), told us

"Of those who set of, it is ironic that those condemned to transportation as convicts had best prospect of coming safely through. Fearful though their treatment often was - especially in the earliest years - losses among them through illness at sea averaged less than four per voyage. On an emigrant ship a surgeon would not have considered it untoward had losses run to five times this number"