Duchy of Hesse Darmstadt, were landed in our city too destitute and enfeebled to go at large, without the hazard of becoming, at once, a public charge. The plan of their shipment was soon after developed by a correspondence between the Burgomaster of this parish, and the overseers of parishes in other Duchies, for the avowed purpose, on the part of the latter, of learning the expense and the method by which it was done, and with an intimation, that the same course would soon be adopted by every other parish which felt itself burdened with its paupers. The entire population of Grosszimern amounted to 4000 exhausted, they enter on ship-board to | breathe a foul air, and to subsist on meagre food, till a fever is generated, which here soon carries them off. The condition in which the foreign pauper population came upon us at this period was most melancholy. We cannot well describe it without casting the strongest and deepest censure upon parties connected with their transportation. We designate no parties in particular. The facts existed-most stubborn facts, and they could not have existed as they did, without a censurable cause. Prior to the spring of 1847, our general and state laws were wholly inadequate to protect either the immigrant or the city. Large-674 of whom, chiefly paupers, embarked numbers were landed on the shores of neighboring States, and from thence found their way into the city to be supported at its expense; so great was the influx during the fall of 1846, and the winter of 1847; so destitute, emaciated, and diseased, were a large proportion of many cargoes; so like mere merchandise did some of them apparently come upon our shores, that our municipal authority could no longer resist public opinion, and were compelled to an investigation. But wherein was the criminality, when thousands were fleeing from starvation, and pressing in companies into our ships to reach a land of plenty? The scattered dregs of foreign poor-houses, liberated prisoners, large numbers of diseased and debauched, and some idiotic were landed, it is true, as received. If such came in American vessels, the owner and the master, we reply, knew the law, and still more, they understood the moral relations of their position, both to the immigrant and to their country; yet in view of this, there was adopted no systematic plan by which to separate the better from the morally prohibited class. The profits of transportation were allowed to more than balance every hazard of wrong. If this be a harsh, it is also a truthful picture. By whose plan do agents traverse the mountain-lands, and the bogs of Ireland, the destitute parishes of Germany, to make interest at every available point, even though this available point be the prison, the poor-house, or among the most degraded wherever found. Two cargoes, numbering in all upwards of six hundred immigrants, shipped late in the fall of 1846 from the parish of Grosszimern, in the for the United States at the expense of the parish. Besides this, each received $1.50 or $2.00, for his immediate necessities on arrival at New York-the whole cost amounting to $16,850. By this enterprise, says the correspondence, the parish saved a yearly expense of 2500 florins or $833.33. These were the identical paupers, which, added to the native poor of our city, compelled the Commissioner of the Almshouse to transform its work-house, its garrets, and even its dead-house into dormitories. Destitute as they were, the greater proportion were about to be transferred in different directions into the interior, that, if they came back upon the city for support, they might come singly, or in small numbers, and thus, with greater difficulty be identified and made chargeable to their shippers. The Commissioner, with praiseworthy firmness and energy, promptly transferred the entire body to the Almshouse, crowded already as it was. These shippers as promptly compromised the matter, by paying $5000 into the city treasury; thus virtually confessing their knowledge of the legal, if not of the moral nature of the transaction. The condition of embarkation and of transit has often heretofore been most melancholy for the immigrant. Stimulated by the love of gain and shielding their consciences under the cover of philanthropy, many shippers-we do not say all in transporting the almost naked poor, and sometimes even the very dregs of society from a land of famine, and a country in which they were generally oppressed, have oftentimes crowded them into their vessels without distinction or discrimina tion, so long as they could receive an equivalent for freight. Had we space, we could produce evidence of the wretchedness and horrors of some of these voyages, equalled by nothing, or transcended by nothing save in the African slave trade. Crowded together with no regard to sex, and with no proper sanitary care or medical advice, they breathe an atmosphere, which, under any circumstances, must generate the worst diseases. How many vessels come into our port, the one fourth, one fifth, or the sixth of their passengers having found a final home on the deep; with a like number, it may be, prostrated by disease, when a small expense would have saved this suffering and mortaliity; and yet some of these owners are men of large experience in business, possessing a high order of intelligence, and enjoying in their own dwellings all the luxuries and refinements of life, which science or art can give. Is he not morally and deeply culpable who employs the highest skill, and spares no expense in the model of his ships, while his fellow beings die by scores in a single passage, because there is applied, neither science nor skill to the ventilation and the regimen of these ships? Is he not culpable who permits 300 passengers to be crowded into the steerage of one of these vessels with no suitable companion-way for egress to the deck, and with but one fire and one caboose for all their dietary, when the inevitable result must be disorder, personal filthiness, halfcooked food, and contagious fevers? In the fall of 1846, with the number of arrivals, all these evils were rapidly augmenting. But pauperism increased in a still greater ratio. The city enjoyed but a nominal protection. The increment of foreign population, was adding a most extraordinary sum to its expenses. The bonding system, by which, instead of a per capita tax, the shipper gave bonds to make good to the city, all expenses incurred on account of immigrants landed by his vessels, was carried on by proxy. His agent, in most cases, and not the ship owner himself, gave bonds. This agent could swear to his own solvency. His evidence was admissible and conclusive. By this process one individual is said, within a few years, to have given bonds to an amount exceeding one million of dollars. The city becomes the plaintiff. The issue is uncertain; for the case, if not clearly made out, is dismissed; if not dismissed, delayed; and in either case the city bears the burden of the costs. On 90,000 immigrants bonded in 1846, there was paid into the city treasury only $12,000; and the whole sum paid under bonds and for commutation amounted to but $22,000. Such was the state of things at the opening of 1847, when the Common Council of the city, by a Committee, represented to Congress the necessity of some legislation by that body for the protection of both immigrants and the city. It resulted in the passage of a bill entitled, an Act to regulate the carriage of passengers in merchant vessels, approved March 22d, 1847. It requires a far better provision for their health and comfort than was ever before made. Sec. 1 provides:-That no vessel shall take more than one passenger to 14 superficial feet, if the voyage pass not within the tropics; if within them, she may take one for every twenty superficial feet, and if any on the lower or orlop deck, one for every thirty feet. Any master violating these provisions shall be fined fifty dollars, and may be imprisoned one year. 2d. If the number taken exceed this limit by twenty, the vessel shall be forfeited to the United States. 3d. If any vessel shall have more than two tiers of berths, or if these berths are not well constructed and at least six feet in length and eighteen inches in width, for every passenger carried in such vessel, a fine of five dollars shall be paid. 4th. The amount of all these penalties to be a lien on the vessel. This law had the effect at once to reduce the number taken in each vessel; it obliged shippers to charge higher rates for passage, and was in most cases the means of bringing into the country a better class of immigrants. The Common Council soon after deputed its Committee to the Legislature of the State, with the basis of an Act which has since become a law. It constituted an independent Commission of Emigration, and transferred the entire control of foreign immigrants from the Almshouse to this body. It provides, 1st. That for every immigrant passenger, arriving at the port of New York, one dollar shall be paid to the Chamberlain of the city, and one half said sum for the use of the Marine Hospital, where all the sick are provided for. 2d. Every Master of a vessel shall report under oath to the Mayor on his arrival, the name, place of birth, last legal residence, age and occupation of every immigrant passenger in his vessel, and he shall forfeit seventy-five dollars for every passenger in regard to whom such report is omitted or falsely made, and for refusal or neglect to pay such money, the owner or owners shall be subject to a penalty of three hundred dollars for each passenger. 3d. It constitutes a Commission of Emigration, consisting of the Mayors of New York and Brooklyn; President of the Irish and German Emigrant Societies, besides six responsible and disinterested citizens; these six to form three classes as to time, of two, four and six years, and all vacancies afterward to be filled by the Governor and Senate. 4th. The Act gives to said Commission full power to employ all necessary agency, to provide for the comfort and support of all sick or those likely to become a charge to the city out of this commutation fund; to require bonds from the shipper for all likely to become a permanent charge; to sue and to be sued. 5th. The Commission shall prescribe all rules by which indemnity for care of immigrants shall be claimed in any other part of the State. 6th. All penalties and forfeitures shall be a lien on the ships or vessels bringing immigrants. In accordance with this law, the Board of Commission was organized on the 8th of May, 1847. Robert Taylor, Esq., was appointed general agent, and Hon. Wm. F. Havemayer, Ex-Mayor, President. Its first duty was to furnish large accommodations for the destitute and sick. The Quarantine Hospitals were already entirely filled. Temporary use was therefore made of all the spare room in the Hospital and Almshouse belonging to the city. As the fever increased at Quarantine, the convalescent were removed to the Almshouse at Bellevue, till from fear of the contagion both in that institution and in the surrounding neighborhood, the Board of Health opposed further admittance. Notwithstanding they had erected a building at Quarantine, one story high and six hundred feet long, the sick so increased that the Marine Hospital, the City Hospital, and the Almshouse were entirely inadequate. They were compelled to lease the large building formerly used as a nursery on Long Island Farms. These were furnished and a physician appointed, yet so greatly was the vicinity excited, that in a few days it was burnt to the ground. Dr. Wilson's private hospital at Bloomingdale, the New York Hospital, and two large government stores, within Quarantine enclosure, were now added to the apartments occupied, till the 12th of June, when further admission to the Almshouse was entirely refused. The outbuildings of the old Almshouse were now fitted up for temporary use, till boats and carriages could be procured for the use of the Board. 666 The state of things,' said the Commission. 'had now become truly appalling-the Health Officer stated that he could not receive any be obtained for either sick or destitute in the more into the Hospital; admittance could not Almshouse; the City Hospital and Dr. Wilson's Hospital were full, and the out-buildings of the old Almshouse were constantly occupied by the sick daily brought in, whilst cases of ship-fever appeared in many parts of the city. Owing to the excited state of the public mind, it became a subject of the utmost embarfound for the great number of persons to be rassment to know where any shelter could be immediately provided for. In this emergency the Commissioners fortunately obtained the use of a large unoccupied stone building on Ward's Island, in the East River, about six miles from the city. This building, originally intended for a factory, is one hundred and forty feet in length, forty feet wide and five stories high. On the 13th June, a steamboat was sent to it loaded with bedding, provisions, &c. and with the immigrants who remained unprovided for.'' As early as June 4th, the Staten Island ferry boats refused to carry patients to the Quarantine. The Board then chartered a boat and purchased carriages which are still kept for this special use. By the arrangement at Ward's Island and the extension at Quarantine, they are now able to meet all the demands upon them. During a part of the season so great was the demand for bedding and clothing for the sick, that upwards of 200 women were kept at work on these articles, and as early as July 17th there had been purchased and made up for the Marine Hospital and Ward's Island, 10,308 articles of clothing and bedding. Since the organization of the Board, now nearly a year, over 8000 patients have been treated for fever and other diseases, and there have been more than 1000 deaths. Justice Taylor, the General Agent, who was for many years most favorably known and highly appreciated in his connection with our city affairs, and several of the physicians, became victims of the disease. Mr. Taylor is succeeded by Dr. John H. Griscom, a medical gentleman of eminence and sound practical experience. The following is the number of immigrant arrivals at the port of New York, in the last five years: From the 5th of May, 1847, to January, 1848, 129,062. The number treated for fevers and other diseases in the last period is 8,354; the number of deaths 1,066, and the total number for whose relief money was expended by the Commission, 10,066. For commutation fees and Hospital fund, the receipts of the Commission on these 129,062 arrivals were $176,000; their expenditure, $125,000. One half of the arrivals of the current year are Germans, few of whom have been a charge to the board. The number which reached the province of Canada in 1845 was 25,575; in 1846, 32,755; in 1847 to November 1st, 92,000. The total of deaths in 1845-6 on the voyage and at Quarantine was 272, whereas in 1847 the deaths reached the alarming number of 10,000, besides large numbers that died on their way to Upper Canada. These were almost exclusively Irish. In addition to the number reported by the Board of Emigration, it is estimated that more than 25,000 have during 1847 passed into the United States from Canada. From this source, says the Almshouse Commissioner, the city are now supporting more than one-half as many as are aided by the Commissioners of Emigration. Since the 5th of May, about 500 have been received into the Almshouse from the Canadas alone, and not one dollar has been paid on their account. Besides there are a large number of this class receiving out-door relief, and all chargeable to the city. In his opinion, the law of the 5th of March has not entirely fulfilled the high expectation of its advocates, and needs amendment. But whatever its defects, if it has done nothing more, to have entirely separated these 8,000 fever patients from the city, and thereby prevented the spread of ship-fever among its citizens, and to have dispensed the best medical aid to so great a number, is a work which infinitely transcends, in importance, any amount which it might have cost. There are other evils connected with the condition of the immigrant which add to the expense of the city. By an order of the House of Assembly of the 11th of October last, we have before us a pamphlet of 156 pages, 12mo. the result of a searching and faithful investigation of a committee of that body into frauds upon immigrants. These are of the most gross and flagrant nature, committed by boarding-house keepers, runners and forwarding agents. Many of the agents, by deceiving, by spurious and artfully worded tickets, make a profit of from $3 to $6 out of each passenger. By this testimony it appeared that the gross receipts of one forwarding house in New York in 1847, were about $125,000. This committee reported a bill which is now before the House, giving the Board of Emigration full power to purchase or lease docks, with enclosures where all immigrants shall be landed; requiring a license from runners and agents, and imposing a severe penalty for the violation of law. The Board of Emigration urge its passage; for the sake of humanity and justice, if not for the credit of our Legislature, it should immediately become law. By the testimony before this committee it appears that the 150 poor Hollanders who found their grave on the lake by the loss of the Phoenix, were not only defrauded, but kept two days on board that propeller at Buffalo, when that vessel was already overloaded, and they had a clear right to a higher class steamer. This pamphlet is filled with startling facts. For the further protection of the immi manner, urgent; for, although the current of benevolence has flowed bounteously and freely, there has, at no period, been a greater want of funds; in none have the applications been so numerous beyond the ability to meet them. The numerous local associations we have described still exist. If, at a fair estimate, we sum up their annual charity, with that of the city organ grant, the Hon. Mr. Grinnell, from the Committee of Commerce, has lately reported to Congress a most important bill. It provides that all vessels of the United States, or of other countries, if employed in the transportation of passengers between Europe and the United States, shall be thoroughly ventilated by companion ways and venteducts; if carrying over two hundred passengers, shall have two cook-ization of a later date, at $200,000; if for ing ranges; if over four hundred, four ranges; it requires provision, for each passenger on leaving port, of 35 lbs. navy bread, 10 lbs. each of rice, oat meal, wheat flour and corn meal, 35 lbs. of potatoes, 30 lbs. of pork, one gallon vinegar, and 60 gallons of fresh water; that, if not so provided, and passengers are put on short allowance, each may recover by law three dollars for every day so kept; that the Captain shall post up regulations for the health and cleanliness of his ship, and shall have full power to maintain a corresponding discipline; and that, for every violation of the provisions of the Act, the owner or owners shall pay two hundred dollars. In reviewing these facts, we find, that there has been a most extraordinary demand upon the legal charity of the city during the past two years. Nothing has heretofore equalled it, in the history of these institutions. The demand on its voluntary charity also has been, in like the Almshouse and the Board of Emigration we add $600,000, in accordance with their reports, a true account; and then add that which never comes to the eye of the public, but finds its way through private and diversified channels, the total amount of our disbursement for the year just closed, can fall but little short of one million of dollars-an extraordinary sum indeed, if it were all expended to alleviate the misfortunes of only 400,000 people, and these, too, forming the first commercial city in America. But the analysis of this sum explains the cause of its demand; it shows the external pressure. We are literally the gate-way for the entrance of the oppressed of the earth into (to them) the land of better promise. It is their resting-place, in which to die, from the exhaustion of a previously hard, toilsome existence and famishing voyage, or from which to survey the land and to seek out some spot whereon the battle of life shall be less hopeless and severe. |