Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York/Appendix/1
I. Sufferings of Emigrants while at Sea.
REPORT OF ANDREAS GEYER, JR.,
ON THE CONDITION OF GERMAN REDEMPTIONERS ON BOARD OF THE AMERICAN SHIP GENERAL WAYNE, CAPTAIN JOHN CONKLIN, ADDRESSED, ON APRIL 27. 1805, TO HON. H. MUHLENBERG, PRESIDENT OF THE GERMAN SOCIETY OF PHILADELPHIA.[1]
Sir: Having just returned from the errand sent upon by you and the other officers of the German Society, relative to the German Redemptioners lately arrived at Perth Amboy, I have thought proper without loss of time to communicate to you in writing, for your and their information, how far I proceeded with the business entrusted me, respecting the said German redemptioners.
I left the city on Friday last, and in the evening arrived at New Brunswick, when I waited on Mr. Robert Eastburn, and presented him the letter you addressed him. Mr. Eastburn appears to be a gentleman of humanity and of feeling. After he read the letter, he observed a willingness to accompany me to Amboy; he did so the next morning, as also did Mr. Kladey. Both of them behaved with the greatest politeness towards me, and with great liberality towards the German Redemptioners at Amboy. Immediately on our arrival at Amboy we went to the river with an intention of going on board the ship General Wayne, or with an expectation of seeing some of the redemptioners on shore. How ever, we saw none of them at the time, and the ship was weighing anchor, and soon after set sail for New York. By enquiry we found the passengers were deposited in the Jail of Amboy, however not closely confined, having permission granted them by the agent to walk about the place or town. From what I could learn, the captain began to be uneasy, as some of the inhabitants had spoken to him with respect to the malconduct exercised by him towards those unhappy beings, and resolved to leave Amboy and go to New York.
I went to visit those unfortunate people, and in truth they may be called unfortunate. And I must confess I have seen a number of vessels at Philadelphia with redemptioners, but never did I see such a set of miserable beings in my life. Death, to make use of the expression, appeared to be staring them in the face. The complaints were numerous which they made against the captain respecting the bad treatment they received from him on and during the passage. The complaints which I conceive are of the greatest importance I shall briefly state. My intention was to have had them confirmed with their oaths, but as they are made by every one of the passengers I thought it unnecessary. They are that they left Hamburg some time in November last, and arrived at Tönningen, where lay the ship General Wayne, John Conklin, Master, bound for New York, with whom they entered into a certain agreement, on condition that he, the said Conklin, would take them to New York, that during the passage they should be allowed a certain quantity of bread, meat, peas, fish, vinegar, butter, potatoes, tobacco, etc., as also a dram in the morning, as will appear by a reference to the agreement itself, each passenger having one. About fourteen days after they left Tönningen they put into an English port near Portsmouth, where they remained about four weeks; that during that time a British recruiting officer came on board the ship, when the captain in formed them that they now had an opportunity of enlisting, that those who so chose to do might, as the recruiting officer was on board the ship. Ten men consented, and entered their names, giving to the other passengers their reasons for so doing, namely, that, having been already put on allowance by the captain, they were apprehensive that, should they stay on board the ship, they should be starved before they arrived in America. Amongst those that enlisted was a man who had a wife and child on board the ship; that eight days after they had thus entered their names they were taken from the ship by the recruiting officer, although some of them wished to withdraw their names, but to no effect; go they must. The woman and her child are now at Amboy, lamenting the loss of the husband and father.
On the last day of their remaining in this British port, the same recruiting officer came the third time on board the ship, when the mate called four or five of the passengers by name, and told them, in the presence of the captain, they must be soldiers and go with the officer. They replied they had no intention of being soldiers, they wished to go to America; whereupon the captain and mate seized one of them by name Samuel Vogel, and threw him into the boat belonging to the recruiting officer, which was alongside of the ship. However, Vogel got back again into the ship, went below, and hid himself, but was again compelled to come forward with his clothes, when the recruiting officer, observing him weep, declared he would not have him, and left the ship, mentioning that he should not have again come on board had not the captain, the day before, pressed him so to do. The captain was highly dissatisfied with these men for refusing to go, and declared that they should not have anything to eat on board the ship, that they might starve, and ordered one of them to be flogged for refusing, which was performed, too, in a cruel manner. That the whole of the passengers, when at this British port, complained to the captain that the treatment they received was not such as was agreed to between them at Tönningen. He replied they were not then in Tönningen, neither were they in America, but in England. They then set sail, and after fourteen days had elapsed the captain informed them that they would get nothing to eat except bread and meat. After this each person received two biscuits, one pint of water, and the eighth part of a pound of meat per day. This regulation continued for two or three weeks, when they one and all declared they could not any longer exist on the small allowance they received; that they must, without doubt, perish. The hunger and thirst being at this time so great, and the children continually crying out for bread and drink, some of the men, resolved, at all events, to procure bread, broke open the apartment wherein it was kept, and took some. This was discovered by the captain, as were also those who did the same, when each of them was ordered to, and actually did, receive, after being first tied, a number of lashes on their bare backs well laid on. The whole of the passengers were also punished for this offence. The men received no bread, the women but one biscuit. This continued for nine days, when the men were again allowed one biscuit per day; however, the captain would at least make or proclaim a fast day. In this situation their condition became dreadful, so much so that five and twenty men, women, and children actually perished for the want of the common necessaries of life, in short, for the want of bread. The latter were ten in number, all at the time at the breasts of their mothers. The hunger was so great on board that all the bones about the ship were hunted up by them, pounded with a hammer and eaten; and what is more lamentable, some of the deceased persons, not many hours before their death, crawled on their hands and feet to the captain, and begged him, for God's sake, to give them a mouthful of bread or a drop of water to keep them from perishing, but their supplications were in vain; he most obstinately refused, and thus did they perish. The cry of the children for bread was, as I am informed, so great that it would be impossible for man to describe it, nor can the passengers believe that any other person excepting Captain Conklin would be found whose heart would not have melted with compassion to hear those little inoffensive ones cry for bread. The number of passengers, when the ship arrived at Amboy, amounted to one hundred and thirty-two. Fifty-one remain there still; the others have been disposed of.
The passengers further state that they did not receive the tobacco, the fish, nor the potatoes, as they ought to have received, and which they were entitled to as by their contract with the captain, neither did they receive their dram but four or five times during their passage, and no butter after they left the British port until within three or four days ago.
The foregoing are the principal causes of complaint, and indeed they appear very serious ones too to me. However, I having heard those complaints, and understanding from a number of citizens of Amboy that the captain's intention was to take the ship to New York, leave her, as also the State of New York, and go to his native State, Rhode Island, I was at a loss to know how to act or what to do, as my instructions were not for New York. However, after reflection I determined to push on for New York, and there inform the German Society of his conduct. I did so, and on Sunday arrived there, when, after some little enquiry, I found the President of the society, Mr. Philip I. Arcularius. To him I communicated the whole of this disagreeable affair. His feelings can be more easily conceived than described. He, however, gave directions to have the officers of the society summoned to meet the next day, which was done, and they all attended, excepting one of the assistants, and, after hearing the circumstances relative to those unfortunate people, they appointed three of their members, officers, to act in such way as they should, after taking legal advice, think best to bring the captain to that punishment which his conduct should merit.
THE IRISH EXODUS.
From Maguire's "Irish in America."
I HAVE more than once referred to the unfavorable circumstances under which the vast majority of the Irish arrived in America, and the difficulties with which, in a special degree, they had to contend; but the picture would be most imperfect were not some reference made to the disastrous emigration of the years 1847 and 1848—to that blind and desperate rush across the Atlantic known and described, and to be recognized for time to come, as the Irish Exodus. We shall confine our present reference to the emigration to Canada, and track its course up the waters of the St. Lawrence. A glance even at a single quarantine—that of Grosse Isle, in the St. Lawrence, about thirty miles below Quebec—while affording a faint idea of the horrors crowded into a few months, may enable the reader to understand with what alarm the advent of the Irish was regarded by the well-to-do colonists of British America; and how the natural terror they inspired, through the terrible disease brought with them across the ocean, deepened the prejudice against them, notwithstanding that their sufferings and misery appealed to the best sympathies of the human heart.
On the 8th of May, 1847, the Urania, from Cork, with several hundred immigrants on board, a large proportion of them sick and dying of the ship-fever, was put into quarantine at Grosse Isle. This was the first of the plague-smitten ships from Ireland which that year sailed up the St. Lawrence. But before the first week of June as many as eighty-four ships of various tonnage were driven in by an easterly wind; and of that enormous number of vessels there was not one free from the taint of malignant typhus, the offspring of famine and of the foul ship-hold. This fleet of vessels literally reeked with pestilence. All sailing-vessels the merciful speed of the well-appointed steamer being unknown to the emigrant of those days a tolerably quick passage occupied from six to eight weeks; while passages of ten or twelve weeks, and even a longer time, were not considered at all extraordinary at a period when craft of every kind, the most unsuited as well as the least seaworthy, were pressed into the service of human deportation.
Who can imagine the horrors of even the shortest passage in an emigrant ship crowded beyond its utmost capability of stowage with unhappy beings of all ages, with fever raging in their midst? Under the most favorable circumstances it is impossible to maintain perfect purity of atmosphere between decks, even when ports are open, and every device is adopted to secure the greatest amount of ventilation. But a crowded emigrant sailing-ship of twenty years since, with fever on board!—the crew sullen or brutal from very desperation, or paralyzed with terror of the plague—the miserable passengers unable to help themselves, or afford the least relief to each other; one-fourth, or one-third, or one-half of the entire number in different stages of the disease; many dying, some dead; the fatal poison intensified by the indescribable foulness of the air breathed and rebreathed by the gasping sufferers—the wails of children, the ravings of the delirious, the cries and groans of those in mortal agony! Of the eighty-four emigrant ships that anchored at Grosse Isle in the summer of 1847, there was not a single one to which this description might not rightly apply.
The authorities were taken by surprise, owing to the sudden arrival of this plague-smitten fleet, and, save the sheds that remained since 1832, there was no accommodation of any kind on the island. These sheds were rapidly filled with the miserable people, the sick and the dying, and round their walls lay groups of half-naked men, women, and children, in the same condition—sick or dying. Hundreds were literally flung on the beach, left amid the mud and stones, to crawl on the dry land as they could. "I have seen," says the priest who was then chaplain of the quarantine, and who had been but one year on the mission, "I have one day seen thirty-seven people lying on the beach, crawling on the mud, and dying like fish out of water." Many of these, and many more besides, gasped out their last breath on that fatal shore, not able to drag themselves from the slime in which they lay. Death was doing its work everywhere—in the sheds, around the sheds, where the victims lay in hundreds under the canopy of heaven, and in the poisonous holds of the plague-ships, all of which were declared to be and treated as hospitals.
From ship to ship the young Irish priest carried the consolations of religion to the dying. Amidst shrieks, and groans, and wild ravings, and heart-rending lamentations—over prostrate sufferers in every stage of the sickness from loathsome berth to loathsome berth, he pursued his holy task. So noxious was the pent-up atmosphere of these floating pest-houses, that he had frequently to rush on deck, to breathe the pure air or to relieve his overtaxed stomach; then he would again plunge into the foul den, and resume his interrupted labors.
There being, at first, no organization, no staff, no available resources, it may be imagined why the mortality rose to a prodigious rate, and how at one time as many as 150 bodies, most of them in a half-naked state, would be piled up in the dead-house, awaiting such sepulture as a huge pit could afford. Poor creatures would crawl out of the sheds, and, being too exhausted to return, would be found lying in the open air, not a few of them rigid in death. When the authorities were enabled to erect sheds sufficient for the reception of the sick, and provide a staff of physicians and nurses, and the Archbishop of Quebec had appointed a number of priests, who took the hospital duty in turn, there was of course more order and regularity; but the mortality was for a time scarcely diminished. The deaths were as many as 100 and 150 and even 200 a day, and this for a considerable period during the summer. The masters of the quarantine-bound ships were naturally desirous of getting rid as speedily as possible of their dangerous and unprofitable freight; and the manner in which the helpless people were landed or thrown on the island aggravated their sufferings, and in a vast number of instances precipitated their fate. Then the hunger and thirst from which they suffered in the badly found ships, between whose crowded and stifling decks they had been so long pent up, had so far destroyed their vital energy that they had but little chance of life when once struck down.
About the middle of June the young chaplain was attacked by the pestilence. For ten days he had not taken off his clothes, and his boots, which he constantly wore for all that time, had to be cut from his feet. A couple of months elapsed before he resumed his duties; but when he returned to his post of danger the mortality was still of fearful magnitude. Several priests, a few Irish, the majority French Canadians, caught the infection; and of the twenty-five who were attacked, seven paid with their lives the penalty of their devotion. Not a few of these men were professors in colleges; but at the appeal of the Archbishop they left their classes and their studies for the horrors and perils of the fever sheds.
It was not until the 1st of November that the quarantine of Grosse Isle was closed. Upon that barren isle as many as 10,000 of the Irish race were consigned to the grave-pit. By some the estimate is made much higher, and 12,000 is considered nearer the actual number. A register was kept, and is still in existence, but it does not commence earlier than June 16, when the mortality was nearly at its height. According to this death-roll, there were buried, between the 16th and 30th of June, 487 Irish immigrants "whose names could not be ascertained." In July, 941 were thrown into nameless graves; and in August, 918 were entered in the register under the comprehensive description—"unknown." There were interred, from the 16th of June to the closing of the quarantine for that year, 2,905 of a Christian people, whose names could not be discovered amidst the confusion and carnage of that fatal summer. In the following year 2,000 additional victims were entered in the same register, without name or trace of any kind to tell who they were or whence they had come. Thus 5,000 out of the total number of victims were simply described as "unknown."
REPORT ON THE CONDITION OF THE SHIP LEIBNITZ,
OF SLOMAN'S HAMBURG LINE.
Commissioners of Emigration, of the State of New York.
At a regular meeting of the Board of Commissioners of Emigration, held Wednesday, the 22d day of January, 1868, the Vice-President, Frederick S. Winston, Esq., in the chair, and a quorum being present, the following resolutions were, on motion, adopted:
Resolved, That the Report of Commissioners Kapp and Bissinger, in relation to the mortality on the sailing-ship Leibnitz, be accepted and adopted, and be referred to the Special Committee, Messrs. Kapp, O'Gorman, and Bissinger, and said Committee be requested to draft a bill, subject to the approval of this Board, to be presented to Congress for adoption.
Resolved, That official copies of the Report be transmitted to the Honorables the Secretaries of State and of the Treasury of the United States, Baron Von Gerolt, as the Diplomatic Representative of the North German Confederation, to the Consul-Generals of Prussia and Mecklenburg, and to the daily press of this city.
Resolved, That one thousand copies of the above Report be printed for circulation.
The following is the Report of Messrs. Kapp and Bissinger, referred to in the foregoing resolutions:
To the Board of Commissioners of Emigration:
Gentlemen: Although not expressly authorized, yet, because the emergency arose since your last meeting, the undersigned deemed it their duty to go on board the ill-fated ship Leibnitz, and to enquire into the condition of her passengers transferred to the hospital-ship Illinois, in the Lower Bay.
Dr. Swinburne, the Health Officer, kindly placed the steamer Fletcher at our disposal. On Wednesday, Jan. 15, we went down the bay, accompanied, among others, by the physicians of the German Society, Drs. Pieper, Schwarzenberg, and Krause, who volunteered their services for the examination of the cause of the sickness.
The Leibnitz, originally the Van Couver, is a large and fine vessel, built at Boston for the China trade, and formerly plying between that port and China. She was sold some years ago to the house of Robert M. Sloman, and has since sailed under her present name.
We were informed that her last trip was her second with emigrants on board. Last summer, she went to Quebec with about seven hundred passengers, of whom she lost only a few on her passage; this time, she left Hamburg, Nov. 2, 1867, Capt. H. F. Bornhold, lay at Cuxhaven, on account of head-winds, until the llth, whereupon she took the southern course to New York. She went by the way of Madeira, down to the Tropics, 20th degree, and arrived in the Lower Bay on Jan. 11, 1868, after a passage of 61 days, or rather 70 days—at least, as far as the passengers are concerned, who were confined to the densely crowded steerage for that length of time.
The heat, for the period that they were in the lower latitudes, very often reached 24 degrees of Réaumur, or 94 degrees of Fahrenheit. Her passengers 544 in all—of whom 395 were adults, 103 children, and 46 infants—came principally from Mecklenburg, and proposed to settle as farmers and laborers in Illinois and Wisconsin; besides them, there were about 40 Prussians from Pomerania and Posen, and a few Saxons and Thuringians.
It is not proven by any fact, that the cholera (as has been alleged) raged or had raged in or near their homes when or before they left them. This statement appears to have been made by or in behalf of those who have an interest in throwing the origin of the sickness on its poor victims. Of these 544 German passengers, 105 died on the voyage, and three in port, making in all 108 deaths—leaving 436 surviving.
The first death occurred on Nov. 25th. On some days, as for instance on Dec. 1, nine passengers died, and on Dec. 17, eight. The sickness did not abate until toward the end of December, and no new cases happened when the ship had again reached the northern latitudes; five children were born; during the voyage some families had died out entirely; of others, the fathers or mothers are gone; here, a husband had left a poor widow, with small children; and there, a husband had lost his wife. We spoke to some little boys and girls, who, when asked where where their parents, pointed to the ocean with sobs and tears, and cried, "Down there!"
Prior to our arrival on board, the ship had been cleansed and fumigated several times, but not sufficiently so to remove the dirt, which, in some places, covered the walls. Mr. Frederick Kassner, our able and experienced Boarding Officer, reports that he found the ship and the passengers in a most filthy condition, and that when boarding the Leibnitz he hardly discovered a clean spot on the ladder, or on the ropes, where he could put his hands and feet. He does not remember to have seen anything like it within the last five years. Captain True, who likewise boarded the ship immediately after her arrival, corroborates the statement of Mr. Kassner.
As to the interior of the vessel, the upper steerage is high and wide. All the spars, beams, and planks which were used for the construction of temporary berths had been removed. Except through two hatchways and two very small ventilators, it had no ventilation, and not a single window or bull's-eye was open during the voyage. In general, however, it was not worse than the average of the steerages of other emigrant ships; but the lower steerage, the so-called orlop-deck, is a perfect pest-hole, calculated to kill the healthiest man. It had been made a temporary room for the voyage by laying a tier of planks over the lower beams of the vessel, and they were so little supported that they shook when walking on them. The little light this orlop-deck received came through one of the hatchways of the upper-deck. Although the latter was open when we were on board, and although the ship was lying in the open sea, free from all sides, it was impossible to see anything at a distance of two or three feet. On our enquiring how this hole had been lighted during the voyage, we were told that some lanterns had been up there, but that on account of the foulness of the air, they could scarcely burn. It had, of course, much less than the upper-deck draft or ventilation, and was immediately over the keel, where the bilge-water collects, and adjoining part of the cargo, which consisted of wool and hides. And in this place about 120 passengers were crowded for 70 days, and for a greater part of the voyage in a tropical heat, with scanty rations and a very inadequate supply of water, and worse than all, suffering from the miasma below, above, and beside them, which of itself must create fever and pestilence!
The captain himself stated to us that the passengers refused to carry the excrements on deck, and that "the urine and ordure of the upper-steerage flowed down to the lower." As the main-deck was very difficult of access from the orlop-deck, the inmates of the latter often failed to go on deck even to attend to the calls of nature. There were only six water-closets for the accommodation of all the passengers. They have been cleansed, of course; but the smell that emanated from them was still very intense, and corroborates the statement of the above-named officers—that they must have been in an extraordinary frightful condition.
When the ship Lord Brougham, belonging to the same line, arrived on the 6th of December last, from Hamburg, and had lost 75 out of 383 passengers, we personally examined the majority of the survivors, and found them not only healthy and in good spirits, but, at the same time, in every respect satisfied with the treatment they had received on board.
The present case, however, is different. There was not a single emigrant who did not complain of the captain, as well as of the short allowance of provisions and water on board. As we know, from a long experience, that the passengers of emigrant ships, with a very few exceptions, are in the habit of claiming more than they are entitled to, we are far from putting implicit faith in all their statements. There is as much falsehood and exaggeration among this class of people as among any other body of uneducated men. We have, therefore, taken their complaints with due allowance, and report only so much thereof as we believe to be well founded.
All the passengers concur in the complaint that their provisions were short, partly rotten, and that, especially, the supply of water was insufficient, until they were approaching port. We examined the provisions on board, and found that the water was clear and pure. If the whole supply during the voyage was such as the samples handed to us, there was no reason for complaint as to quality. But, in quantity, the complaints of the passengers are too well founded; for they unanimously state, and are not effectually contradicted by the captain, that they never received more than half a pint of drinkable water per day, while by the laws of the United States they were entitled to receive three quarts. Some of the biscuit handed to us were rotten and old, and hardly eatable; other pieces were better. We ordered the steward to open a cask of cornbeef, and found it of ordinary good quality. The butter, however, was rancid. Once a week herrings were cooked instead of meat. The beans and sauerkraut were often badly cooked, and, in spite of hunger, thrown overboard.
The treatment of the passengers was heartless in the extreme. The sick passengers received the same food with the healthy, and high prices were exacted for all extras and comforts. A regular traffic in wine, beer, and liquors was carried on between the passengers on the one side and the steward and crew on the other. A man by the name of Frederick Hildebrand, from Wirsitz, in Posen, who lost two children, paid 35 Prussian thalers extra for beer and wine to sustain himself and his sick wife. A bottle of rum cost him one dollar; a bottle of bad wine even more. "This extortion, at such a time, cannot be too strongly condemned," says Captain True, in his report, which confirms the information received by us from the passengers.
When the first deaths occurred, the corpses were often suffered to remain in the steerage for full twenty-four hours. In some cases the bodies were covered with vermin before they were removed.
There was no physician on board. Although we found a large medicine-chest, it was not large enough for the many cases of sickness, and was, in fact, emptied after the first two weeks of the voyage.
The captain seems to have been sadly deficient in energy and authority in matters of moment, while he punished severely small offences; as, for instance, he handcuffed a passenger for the use of insulting words; but he did not enforce the plainest rules for the health and welfare of his passengers. Instead of compelling them, from the first, to come on deck and remove the dirt, he allowed them to remain below, and to perish among their own excrements. Of the whole crew, the cook alone fell sick and died, as he slept in the steerage. Three passenger girls who were employed in the kitchen, and lived on deck, enjoyed excellent health, during the whole voyage.
The physicians above mentioned, to whose report we refer for particulars, most positively declare that it was not the Asiatic cholera, but intestinal and stomach catarrh (catarrh ventriculi et intestinorum), more or less severe, and contagious typhus, which killed the passengers. From what we saw and learned from the passengers, we likewise arrive at the conclusion that the shocking mortality on board the Leibnitz arose from want of good ventilation, cleanliness, suitable medical care, sufficient water, and wholesome food.
The present case is another instance of the mortality on board the Hamburg sailing-vessels, and increases their bad reputation. Of 917 passengers on board of two ships of the Sloman line, not less than 183 died within one month! As often as complaint has been made here, it has not induced them to make any improvement. It appears that the Hamburg authorities either did not care to examine the merits of the charges brought against their ships or that they were imposed upon by their officials. On the other hand, local interests, friendly feelings, family connections, and other personal considerations, usually prevailing in small political communities, seem to stand in the way of energetic administration of the police of emigrant ships, and of the removal of the several grievances. While the average deaths that take place in the Bremen sailing-vessels amount to one-eighth or one-fourth of the total number of emigrants forwarded, the proportion on board the Hamburg sailing-vessels is more than two per cent.!!
Thus, of 11,264 steerage-passengers who arrived, in 1865, in our port, from Hamburg, 128 died on the passage; of 14,335 who arrived in 1866, 387; and of 8,788, in 1867, not less than 199.
In our opinion, it is of great importance for the interest of humanity, in which both Europe and this country are concerned, and as a matter of political economy, that the transportation of emigrants across the Atlantic to this port should be confined to steam-vessels, as they not only convey the passengers more comfortably and land them in better health, but, in consequence of the regularity and rapidity of the passage, save an immense amount of labor for their own benefit and that of this country.
We are sorry to say that our laws afford very inadequate relief for the punishment of these crimes against humanity, and that, in the majority of cases, the institution of legal proceedings for redress, and the prosecution of the guilty parties, is almost an impossibility.
Much of the suffering, disease, and death on board of emigrant ships could have been prevented, and a recurrence of such abhorrent scenes might hereafter be avoided, by proper enactments of Congress, enforced by suitable penalties.
We would therefore propose to petition Congress for an amendment of the Emigrant Passengers Act, of March 3, 1855, enacted by Congress on the representation of the Commissioners of Emigration of this State, incorporating into the same the following provisions:
I. The Appointment of a Physician or Surgeon on board of all emigrant vessels with more than fifty passengers.—Thus far there is no law requiring it in the statute-book of the United States. The failure to have on board a physician, whose skill and good character should be fully vouched for by unquestionable evidence, should be punished by the infliction of a penalty of at least $5,000, one-half of such penalty to be paid over to the passengers pro rata, and the other half to the Collector of the Customs at the port of New York for the benefit of the Emigrant Fund.
II. The doing away with the orlop-deck on board of emigrant ships.—In case of contravention, the penalty should be at least $5,000; and, in addition, passengers roomed in the orlop-deck should have double the amount of their passage money refunded.
III. A more stingent rule for enforcing the payment of the penalty for the dead passengers.—With a view to protecting emigrants against the rapacity of ship-owners, the 14th section of the present law requires the payment of $10, as a penalty, for every passenger, other than cabin passengers, and over the age of eight years, who shall have died on the voyage from natural disease; for the non-payment of which penalty within twenty-four hours after arrival, a further penalty of $50 is imposed, to be recovered by the United States in any Circuit or District Court. Under this wording of the law, no particular officer of the United States appears to be authorized to prosecute or enforce the collection, and consequently many of the penalties are not paid, and the law, to some extent, becomes a dead letter. We would, therefore, suggest that the section be amended for this port by authorizing and directing a prosecution by the District Attorney of the Southern District, on complaint being made by the Commissioners of Emigration of the State, and making such penalties a lien on the ship or vessel, and the owner or consignee liable therefor.
IV. The power of obtaining redress to be lodged in the hands of the parties injured—the emigrants themselves.
V. Summary proceedings for the recovery of damages.
As to the two latter provisions, we would state that the efforts which have been made by legislation at Washington and at Albany to protect the lives and health of emigrant passengers from the rapacity of ship-owners have been attended with but a very limited share of success. The regulation to which the owners of ships are required to conform are, with some exceptions, precisely those called for by the exigency of the case, as is best proved by the fact that the accidents and disasters which continue to happen are almost always trace able to the disregard of some of these provisions; but the fact that they are disregarded proves, in its turn, that the law must remain a dead letter until more effective remedies are provided against its violation.
The Act of 1855 provides that, if some of its provisions are violated, the master shall be guilty of a misdemeanor; and that, if others of its directions are not complied with, the master or the owners, or both, shall forfeit money penalties against the ship by the authorities of the United States.
It is found that indictments are not feared, and that suits for the recovery of penalties are never instituted.
To make the law effective, the power of obtaining redress must be lodged in the hands of the emigrants themselves.
The law gives them an action against the ship for marine torts and for breaches of marine contracts; but this action must be prosecuted through the dilatory form of admiralty practice. The ship is bonded, and goes on her way. The emigrant, poor, friendless, and often emaciated by disease, is kept loitering in a crowded city, dancing attendance on the delays of litigation, while the Western fields, which he came to till, lie fallow. The loss falls immediately on himself, but indirectly likewise on the entire country, which receives and detains a languishing pauper, when it needs industrious and able-bodied laborers.
It is absolutely necessary to authorize a summary proceeding, simple and expeditious, such as the case of the emigrant requires. A commissioner should be appointed for the especial purpose of hearing and passing upon these complaints. He might be appointed by the Chief Justice of the United States, under the precedent established in the case of the Register in Bankruptcy. His authority, however, must be to hear and determine. An appeal from his decision should not operate to supersede execution upon his judgment; but the losing party should be cast upon his chances of obtaining restitution.
It will also be necessary to establish certain principles of remedial law, not now considered established.
The owner of a ship should be made responsible in damages to the natural representatives of persons dying in the course of a voyage from causes produced by misconduct of such owner, or his agent. Such claims must be declared liens on the ship, recoverable by action in rem in the admiralty form.
The contracts to convey passengers must be declared contracts of absolute insurance, not to be qualified by written or printed stipulations dictated by the ship-owner.
The ship-owner must be prevented from pleading that the emigrants, having seen the ship when they came on board, had assumed their own risks, and precluded themselves against bringing suit for damages occasioned by its imperfections.
Damages merely compensatory will not suffice to recompense sufferers for the annoyance arising from insufficient food or air, or other ill treatment, not causing definite pecuniary loss.
A stated minimum of the damages should be fixed by law in such cases, such as the amount of the passage money, or of double or treble that amount.
We do not think that any of the legislators of the nation will object to the passage of such a bill. One of the greatest sources of the nation's income in wealth and population has been the vast emigration from Europe, and it should therefore be protected by appropriate national legislation. Every principle of public policy, looking to the welfare of the country, as well as every sentiment of humanity, demands this at the hands of Congress.
Under the present system, the emigrants are treated more like beasts of burden than like human beings, starved and crowded together in ill-ventilated, ill-fitted, ill-supplied, and ill-manned vessels.
The arrival of an emigrant ship in our ports, if it does not bring disease and pestilence among us, often occasions great apprehension and alarm, disturbing the regular business of our city, and creating an indefinable prejudice against the worthy emigrant, instead of extending to him, as he truly deserves, a kind and hearty welcome.
The Commissioners of Emigration are the trustees as well of the emigrant as of the State of New York and of the United States in general. Although appointed by the State authority for State purposes, their line of duty is not confined to the boundaries of the State, but extends over the whole country, inasmuch as they have to encourage and protect the emigrant until he reaches his new home. It would betray a narrow-mindedness, of which no member of this Board is guilty, if they did not look at emigration from this national point of view. Whenever they succeed in doing away with a grievance, or achieving a result favorable to the emigrants, it is a national gain, and an advantage won for the whole country.
Hence, every consideration in relation to the comfort and protection of the emigrant is of a national character, and demands the serious attention of a good and enlightened statesmanship.
- ↑ Copied by the author from the Records of the German Society in Philadelphia. The English of the original has not been changed.