Page:Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York.djvu/171

Rh I was myself at that time a witness of the unreliability of the statements of immigrants concerning their means. Being present when, in the summer of 1856, the passengers of a German ship were examined at Castle Garden, I observed an old farmer and his three adult sons, who, in answer to the enquiry of the Superintendent, opened their pocket-books, counted the contents of each, and hesitatingly declared it to be about $25. I interposed, and explained to these people, who evidently apprehended that they would be taxed on account of their money, the reason of the interrogatories, whereupon the old farmer showed me a bill of exchange of $2,700 on a New York banker, and remarked that each of his sons had about the same amount with him. These men had been entered as having about 100 together, while in fact they ought to have been credited with about $11,000.

"German immigrants alone," says a report of the Commissioners of Emigration, December 15, 1854, on the subjects in dispute between the Commissioners of Emigration and the Almshouse Department of the city of New York, "have for the past three years, as estimated by the best German authorities, brought into the country annually an average of about eleven millions of dollars. A large amount of money in proportion to numbers is estimated to have been brought from Holland and other countries. The amount of money thus introduced into the country is incalculable."

These estimates are corroborated by statements which I happened to find among some German statistical tables. It appears from the statistical records of the grand duchy of Baden, that from 1840 to 1849 the ready cash which each emigrant carried with him amounted to 245 florins, or $98 gold. Again, of the Bavarian emigrants between 1845-1851, each was possessed of 233 florins, or $93 20 gold; between 1851-1857, each of 236 florins, or $94 40 gold; while the Brunswickers, who emigrated in 1853, had 136 thalers, or about $96 gold, each. The Würtembergers, in 1855, carried only $76 gold each with them; which sum in 1856 increased to $134 gold, in 1857 to $145 gold, and in 1858 even to $318 gold per head. Other official data concerning this I have not been able to obtain, but the instances just cited throw sufficient light on the subject.