Page:Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York.djvu/118

104 officers in regard to such institutions as are possessed by the Commissioners of Public Charities and Correction in the city of New York, or any of them, for the same purposes.

"§15. Whenever any alien emigrant, whose personal property shall not exceed the value of twenty-five dollars, shall die on the passage to the port of New York, or in the Marine Hospital, or in any other establishment under the charge of the Commissioners, and in all cases in which minor children of alien passengers shall become orphans by their parents or last surviving parent dying, as aforesaid, the personal property which such alien emigrant or such parent or parents may have had with them, shall be taken in charge by the Commissioners of Emigration, to be by them appropriated for the sole benefit of the next of kin of such alien emigrant or of said orphan children; and said Commissioners shall give, in their annual report to the Legislature, a minute description of all cases in which property shall come into their possession by virtue of this section, and the disposition made of the same, unless it shall appear that there are other persons entitled by will or otherwise to such property or distributive share there of. Whenever it shall so appear, the portion only to which the next of kin or said minor orphans would be legally entitled shall be transferred to them or applied to their use, and the remainder shall be received, held, and distributed to the parties severally entitled thereto, in the same manner and with the same authority as by law provided in respect to the Public Administrator of the city of New York, except that the said Commissioners are hereby authorized to distribute the same after a notice for creditors to appear and put in their claims within one week from the publication of the said notice. The said notice shall be published once in one of the daily papers of the city of New York."