Page:Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York.djvu/104

90 to confer with Mr. Minturn, Mr. Andrew Carrigan, and the late Archbishop Hughes, in regard to the details of a law which should fully secure the emigrant. These preliminary steps alarmed the Almshouse Commissioners, to whom the power, both in a pecuniary and political sense, was of too much value to be surrendered. Those Commissioners induced the Common Council to press the immediate passage of a law to protect emigrants from fraud and imposition. That, however, was simply a flank movement. The provisions of their bill merely kept the word of promise to the ear of the emigrants. In the meantime, the real friends of reform prepared a substitute, which, when the Assembly bill came to the Senate, was offered by Senator F. F. Backus, from Monroe County. The various influences unfavorably affected by the substitute offered by Dr. Backus united and made desperate efforts to defeat it. An earnest but unsuccessful party appeal was made to senators by the late John Van Buren and other distinguished politicians.

Alarmed at the aspect of the question in the Senate, the New York Common Council, on March 15, 1847, took up this important subject, and passed a series of resolutions for the purpose of submitting them to a public meeting, to be called irrespective of party. The Mayor approved these resolutions on March 17, 1847:

"Whereas," they say in their proceedings, "The number of emigrant passengers annually arriving at this port has steadily advanced from 11,501 in 1829 to 114,000 in 1846; and

"Whereas, The Passenger Act adopted in 1824, by imposing the bonding system exclusively, has gradually enabled mercenary brokers and agents to assume the charge and custody of the sick and destitute stranger, and from various causes greatly increased the burdens of taxation; and

"Whereas, The annual expenses of the Almshouse Department have now reached the enormous sum of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars; during the month of January, five thousand three hundred and forty-three persons being sustained at the expense of the city, and out-door relief extended to nearly three thousand; and