1 the best recruiting agents

1 THE BEST RECRUITING AGENTS
In 1849 a servant girl wrote home to her brother from Port Adelaide, South Australia: "I have accepted a situation at £20 per annum, so you can tell the servants in your neighbourhood not to stay in England for such wages as from £4 to £8 a year, but come here." Letters such as these, which were circulated from kitchen to kitchen and from attic to attic in English homes, were the best recruiting agents for the colonies, which were then so desperately in need of young women to serve the pioneers who were trying to create a new life for themselves in their chosen countries. Other girls read about the much better prospects overseas in newspapers and magazines, which also published advertisements giving details of free or assisted passages.

1. 
   Those women who went to the colonies as servants
   

1. 
   were all recruited through agents back in England
   
2. 
   missed their families greatly
   
3. 
   played the most important role in attracting others
   
4. 
   found themselves being moved from kitchen to kitchen
   
5. 
   had the pioneering spirit necessary for starting new lives
   

2. 
   Getting to the colonies from England for the servants
   

1. 
   could cost as little as £4
   
2. 
   was essential if they wanted to escape life in English attics
   
3. 
   was only possible if an agent had recruited them
   
4. 
   did not pose any financial problem
   
5. 
   required a written invitation from someone already there
   

3. 
   It is stated in the passage that
   

1. 
   no men could get jobs as servants in Australia
   
2. 
   servants were in great demand for the pioneers establishing new lives
   
3. 
   English homes were short of servants as so many went overseas
   
4. 
   the pioneers who went to the colonies were all men
   
5. 
   emigration from England to Australia started in 1849