Page:1883 Annual Report of the German Society of the City of New York.djvu/20

Rh is hospital money), which is to go toward defraying the expenses of supporting needy emigrants in the City and State of New York during the first five years after their arrival. The administration of this head-money is committed to ten members, among whom the Presidents of the German and Irish Societies act ex officio. Mr. Leopold Bierwirth was the first President of the German Society in the Commission.

1848. The German governments recognize the unconditional right of emigration.

1849. In the Annual Report emigrants are warned against the purchase in Germany of land in this country, and against plans of colonization set on foot in Germany.

. Jacob Windmüller is chosen as representative of the district visitors in the Board. (From this date, until the present time, Jacob Windmüller has been a member of the Board, and now, at the age of eighty-one, after thirty-five years of uninterrupted activity, is its oldest member; since 1852 he has been Second Vice-President of the Society, and Chairman of the Charity Committee.)

1850. . The Board protests against the accusation of having entered into land speculations. The calumnies affecting the Society are proved to have originated with persons whose aim it is to frustrate its efforts to put a stop to the swindling operations of which the emigrants landing in New York have hitherto been the victims.

1852. Complaints of the forced detention of German emigrants in Liverpool, waiting to be forwarded according to contract.

. Removal of the agency from 95 Greenwich Street to Reade Street, near West Street.

1853. . Mme. Henrietta Sonntag offers to take part in a concert for the benefit of the German Society.

. Removal of the agency from Reade Street to 104 Greenwich Street.

The head-money collected for the protection of emigrants is raised from $1.50 to $2.00.

. Repeated complaints of extensive cheating, of which so-called "German Exchange Offices" have been guilty in dealing with emigrants.