Page:Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York.djvu/101

Rh who took a lively interest in the subject, reported, as Chairman of a select Committee of the Common Council, among other things, as follows:

"To avoid the importation of persons utterly unable to maintain themselves, from infirmity of mind or body, and who must necessarily become a permanent charge, your Committee believe that discretionary power should be given to the Mayor to exact bonds in such cases, but distinctly divesting the bondsmen of any authority to maintain them at any private irresponsible establishment. Nearly two millions of dollars being now annually expended in the transportation of passengers to this port alone, it appears unreasonable that the tax-payer should be burdened in proportion to the benefits conferred on a particular class of the community. Voluntarily the passenger agents will never permit the commutation-money which they receive to pass into the city treasury.

"The unceasing hostility of these men towards any modification of the law was indicated in their unscrupulous exertions last winter (1846), at Albany, to postpone the action of the Legislature on the subject. The draft of a law submitted by the Comptroller, and approved unanimously by the Common Council, was permitted to fail without even defence or examination. The passenger-brokers even succeeded in getting through the Legislature a law exclusively for their own benefit, and under circumstances which we hope may be eventually exposed. An amount of fifty cents per head is levied upon every steerage, and two dollars upon every cabin passenger, and designated hospital-money; and for many years, instead of being applied to the support of the emigrant in sickness or destitution, has been appropriated to the building of churches and the maintenance of sailor boarding-houses. The law, lobbied through the Legislature, provides that the Marine Hospital at Staten Island shall receive the alien passengers, when sick, for the period of one year after arrival, though previously this burden devolved upon the bondsmen, who thus increase their profits to the extent of five thousand dollars annually. During the next session of our Legislature, we trust this fund may command the attention of our delegation, and that it