carrying of American citizens; the vessels were small,
ill-appointed, often unseaworthy, half-manned, with-
out order or discipline, and with little attention to
comfort or safety. Exacting the money before the
passenger went on board, all they could get out of
him, shipowners sometimes performed part, some-
times the whole of their contract, according to cir-
cumstances. Indeed captains, seamen, pursers, waiters,
stewards, hotel-keepers, boatmen, and railway officials,
often appear to regard the wayfarer as an enemy,
going from place to place to disturb honest folk like
themselves, and whom to answer otherwise than in a
contemptuous, surly manner were a disgrace to the
profession. A mistake had been committed, the em-
ployes of the California steamship companies seemed
to say, in not having had the passengers all put in
irons before starting. Ear-ringed islanders, tattoed
sailors, impudent negroes, and improved Irishmen,
upon principle snubbed every one that came in their
way, rich or poor, ignorant or learned, as infinitely
beneath them. Jammed into a purgatorial hole, there
to remain in durance vile until the heaven of Califor-
nia was opened to them, from the beginning to the
end of the journey travellers were at the mercy of
these vile, unprincipled persons. The rooms were
often so close and filthy that occupants dreaded to go
to bed at night, and in the morning dreaded to arise
and encounter the social and atmospheric impurities
of the day. Often the floors of ill-ventilated cabins
were strewed with poor women, over whose faces was
spread a deadly pallor, the little ones crawling round
mothers too weak to move ; while in the steerage were
sights so sickening as would put to blush the most
inhuman land-monster of feudal or any other times.
In selling tickets little attention was paid to limita-
tions hi numbers by law; ships with a capacity for
500, would crowd in 1500, and often he who paid for
a first class passage was thrust into the second cabin,
and second cabin-passengers into the steerage. Every
