answer. Another letter was sent, but with the same result. The sister is safe in the Refuge at Ward's Island, but anxious and impatient. Time passes—still no tidings. At length she abandons all hope of finding her brother, and determines to do something for herself; and actually as she is leaving the office with this intention, the brother makes his appearance. What was the cause of the delay? His explanation is simple enough—he had left the place from which he had written to his sister and gone to another place, and 'he hadn't the gumption' to leave his new address with the postmaster.
Shortly before I left New York an instance occurred which impressed me with the value of the present system, under which such care is taken of the interests of the emigrants. A young girl arrived out by a certain steamer, and being taken sick of fever was sent to the hospital at Ward's Island. She said her father was in Boston, but she did not know his address. Her father, expecting her arrival, telegraphed to the agents in New York, enquiring if his daughter had come. The agents, whether ignorant or careless, replied by telegraph—'No.' The father, not satisfied with the answer, wrote to the Commissioners of Emigration, and they at once notified to him that his daughter had arrived, and was then in hospital at Ward's Island. He started from Boston without delay; and I had the assurance of the admirable physician by whom she was attended,* that the interview with her father saved the daughter's life, which was at the time in danger. Innumerable cases might be given in proof of the inconvenience and suffering oftentimes the gravest in jury entailed on emigrants, especially young girls, through this neglect of sending the address accurately and fully, and retaining it when received; also of women giving their maiden instead of their married name; of not having
- Dr. John Dwyer, a true-hearted and kindly Irishman, who was one of the military surgeons attached to Corcoran's Irish Legion.
