Page:Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York.djvu/152

130 An application to the Legislature for the transfer of these bonds to the Commissioners proved equally futile. "If, however," says the Report of the Commissioners for 1864, "for any reason these bonds should be retained by the State, then it is most respectfully submitted that, as they are given as compensation for destruction of buildings, etc., erected at various periods from funds contributed by alien emigrants, for whom the Commissioners are the agents and trustees, or from moneys borrowed on mortgage for and applied to those buildings and improvements for which these bonds were given, they should be regarded as the proper fund to pay off the encumbrances on the property of the Commission, without demanding payment of any portion of it from the Emigrant Fund." Since that time these bonds have been applied to the payment of expenses incurred in the erection of the new Quarantine Station and buildings on the West Bank, and the Commissioners have in consequence received no advantage whatever from the award.

Another illustration of the arbitrary way in which the State of New York disposes of the emigrant funds is the following:

As above stated, the act was passed on April 29, 1863, establishing the new Quarantine Board, and directing the Commissioners of Emigration to convey to the State all the right, title, and interest which they had in the real estate on Staten Island. This property was subject to a mortgage of $200,000, covering the former Marine Hospital lands, with all the Ward's Island property held by the Commissioners. The debt was contracted at various times, and the mortgage given with the express consent of the Governor, Attorney-General, and Comptroller, as required by law, during the administration of Governors Fish, Hunt, and Morgan. The loan was obtained upon the credit of the estimated value of the Quarantine property. The Commissioners thought that, if they contributed $50,000 towards the payment of the mortgage, it would be fully as much as the relative value of the two pieces of property, the equity of the mode of raising, and the application of the fund from alien emigrants would justify. As this sum was recommended by the Comptroller in a report to the Legislature, and had been formerly approved in an act passed in 1867, the Commissioners assented to this division of the debt. In 1868, this property was sold, but the mortgage had not been