Page:1883 Annual Report of the German Society of the City of New York.djvu/8

Rh of emigrants, went into operation, and the demands for the intervention of the Society increased rapidly. The aim was, on the one hand, to do justice to the shipowners in the satisfaction of their demands on the emigrants for passage-money, and on the other, to protect the latter in their contracts of service. The Society repeatedly experienced periods of inactivity as well, occasioned partly by a diminished emigration, partly by the war of 1812, as well as by the prevalence of yellow fever in the city at different times. With the commencement of the great flow of emigration, the material changes in the condition of the working-classes in this country, and the improved means of passage, the necessity arose of protecting the German emigrants against manifold swindling operations, and this gave rise successively to the establishment of the Bureau of Information and the Banking Department, to which two branches the chief activity of the Society is still devoted. The pecuniary assistance afforded indigent Germans has grown, from the small beginnings mentioned below, to a regular expenditure of considerable amount, and is supplemented by a well-organized care of the sick.

The work alluded to above, “In the New Home,” will contain an alphabetical list of all those who have been members of the Society during the first one hundred years of its existence, and this list will be as accurate and complete as it was possible to make it from the books and papers still extant. It is the intention of the Board eventually to make such corrections in this list as may be found necessary, and also to add the names of those who may meanwhile have joined the Society. It is with the wish that this list of new members may prove a very long one, that the Board presents to the present members the following extracts from the history of the Society and the Annual Report for the year 1883.

1784. 23d. At a meeting held this day by the persons hereinafter named, for the purpose of establishing a German Society, the following resolutions were adopted: